Established in 1810 as the Imperiale e Regia Accademia Aretina di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, the institution grew out of the Aretine Society, founded by Peter Leopold in 1787 with the objective of "exercising the reason on various subjects of agrarian art and physics, of moral philosophy and education." On July 20, 1810, the day in which a memorial plaque in honour of Petrarch was placed on the house where the poet was born in Borgo dell'Orto, today the seat of the institution, the Petrarch Academy began its intense activity of studying and disseminating knowledge of agronomy, physics, medicine, palaeography, archaeology, numismatics and economic-political issues. In the early 20th century the Academy participated in the projects carried out by the newly established committee for the national edition of Petrarch’s works and, in 1950, contributed to the initiatives promoted by the National Committee for the IX centennial of the death of Guido d'Arezzo. The Academy’s library is particularly rich; it contains over 20,000 volumes on scientific and historical-literary subjects, as well as numerous manuscripts, some coming from the family library of Francesco Redi.