The Biblioteca della Comunità Israelitica was the library of the Jewish community of Rome, Italy. Established in the early 20th century, it housed approximately 7,000 rare or unique books and manuscripts dating back to at least the 16th century. According to the Central Registry of Looted Art, it was the most important Jewish library in Italy and one of the most important in the world. The contents of the library were looted by Nazi Germany shortly after the Raid of the Ghetto of Rome in October 1943, and have never been recovered. Two months later, the contents of the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano, the Italian Rabbinical College's library located in the same building, were also looted; only part of the contents of the latter library have been recovered. Contents The Biblioteca della Comunità Israelitica was set up in the early 20th century in rooms above the Great Synagogue of Rome at Lungotevere De' Cenci. Its contents consisted of publications that had previously been held at one of the five synagogues of the Roman Ghetto or other locations in the Jewish community of Rome. The library of the Italian Rabbinical College, housed in the same building, had been transferred from Florence to Rome in the 1930s. The latter was a teaching library of almost 10,000 volumes. The Biblioteca della Comunità Israelitica contained many rare or unique books and manuscripts, dating back to at least the 16th century. No complete catalogue exists, but visiting scholars compiled some specific lists during visits before the war. It is estimated that the library contained a quarter of all the work of the Soncinos, Jewish Italian printers from the 16th century who later worked in Salonica and Constantinople, as well as 16th-century works by Daniel Bomberg, Alvise Bragadin, and Nicollet. The library contained approximately 7,000 volumes in all. A partial catalogue was compiled by Jewish Italian historian Isaiah Sonne in 1935, who classified the contents into texts printed by the Soncinos, manuscripts, incunabula, 16th-century oriental copies printed in Constantinople, and special specimens. Sonne, however, complained that he was allowed to see only the second-best items in the library. The lack of a proper catalogue may have been inspired in part by a desire to protect the contents from destruction by the Catholic church which, historically, had done so before to Jewish publications. The Central Registry of Looted Art quoted an expert, Attilio Milano, who stated in a