The Istituto Idrografico della Marina has a library of over 20,000 volumes, including sailing directions, atlases and travel journals dating back to the 18th century. The collection of nautical charts and portolan maps includes items from the 17th century and a thousand rare charts of Russian rivers printed at the beginning of the 20th century.
The library is open to the public, by appointment only.
You can contact the library writing to maridrografico.genova@marina.difesa.it