Our building, where the Tekirdağ Namık Kemal Provincial Public Library is located, is known as the Italian Mansion. It is so named because the building once belonged to the Dussi family, an Italian family. The Dussi Family, as the officials of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, left Genova in 1662 for diplomatic reasons, and settled first in Austria, then Bulgaria, and finally Turkey in a period of three hundred years. Andrea Dussi (1788-1878) and Matteo Dussi (1815-1898) brothers, who came to Tekirdağ in 1841, settled in the houses they built as twin houses on the street called Rakoczi Street today, by drawing lots. The Konak, which is now known as the Italian Mansion and is now the Tekirdağ Namık Kemal Provincial Public Library, falls to Matteo Dussi as a result of the draw. After the death of his father, Matteo Dussi is appointed as the Italian Consulate and continues his duty in this mansion. He marries Regina Misirli and has 8 children. One of his children, Riccardo Dussi (1864-1936), married Evelina Navoni in 1904 and their three children, Mary, Matteo, and Giovanni, were born in this mansion. During the Tripoli War, when the Italians deployed soldiers to Tripoli in 1911 and later to Çanakkale, Rhodes and the Lemnos Islands, the Dussi family had to leave their house and flee, and the mansion was seized by the soldiers. The Dussi Family returned to their homes with the ceasefire in 1912. Riccardo Dussi's son, Matteo, who studied at the Faculty of Engineering in France, returned to the mansion as the eldest son of the house before he could finish the faculty when his father's health deteriorated. Matteo Dussi (1906-1977) married Edvige Zabloska in 1934, and they had 5 children from this marriage, Mirella, Mario, Silvio, Edda-Aldo, and raised their children in this mansion. Matteo Dussi was given the Honorary Consulate of Italy in 1959, and Matteo Dussi continued his duty until 1977, when he passed away. After the death of Matteo Dussi, the consulate was closed. Other members of the family immigrated to Italy and Istanbul. This mansion, which houses the three generations of the Dussi family and is also used as the Italian Consulate, was later sold by auction, and Tekirdağ Municipality bought the mansion and transferred it to the Ministry of Culture.

 

 In 1955, it started to serve for the first time as a children's library in the old Community Center building. On May 19, 1964, it was put into service as Namık Kemal Provincial Public Library, including the children's library. Namık Kemal Library has started to serve in the Italian Mansion since August 2001. It has a total of 46,979 book collections, 43,859 of which are in the public library section and 3,120 in the branch library. In the periodicals section of the library, 54 kinds of periodicals are offered to the reader. Especially housewives make maximum use of periodicals for them. Certain days and weeks, commemoration days explaining the meaning and importance of the day, exhibitions, films and slide shows are held in the library. While the Regional Binding Workshop within the library has been in service since 1965, it has been closed for the last two years.