The Corfu Reading Society was founded in 1836 by a group of fourteen young local citizens. A prototype already existed in the eponymous society in Geneva (Societé de Lecture de Genève). The Reading Society now strives to perform a dual role: on the one hand it provides a center for studying the culture of the Seven Islands, and on the other it functions as a guardian of the traditions and specific characteristics of this small region at a difficult time of social stress and personal alienation. The Society does this by capitalizing on its one hundred and seventy years’ history, on the contribution made by the individual personalities of its members during that time, on their commitment to confronting the key issues which preoccupied the country through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and on its possession of rich collections of books, papers, engravings, pictures, furniture and records.

CAPODISTRIAS MUSEUM