Korgialenios Library Museum

The Korgialenios Library Museum in Argostoli, Greece, combines a public library with a historical and folklore museum, offering a rich collection of books, manuscripts, and artifacts.

Planning your visit

The Korgialenios is both a working public library and a museum, and its collection matters more than its size suggests because of what happened to Kefalonia in 1953. An earthquake sequence that August destroyed most of the island's buildings, killing hundreds and driving mass emigration; Argostoli was flattened almost entirely. The museum preserves photographs, objects and interiors documenting the pre-earthquake island, which is otherwise almost entirely gone.

The folklore collection covers Kefalonian domestic and rural life: costume, embroidery, furniture, agricultural tools, and reconstructed interiors from both peasant houses and aristocratic homes, reflecting a society shaped by Venetian and then British rule of the Ionian islands. The library holds rare manuscripts, early printed books and material on Ionian literature and Byzantine music.

The Ionian islands were never under Ottoman rule, which gave them a distinct cultural trajectory from mainland Greece — visibly Italianate, with their own musical and literary traditions.

It sits in central Argostoli. Allow an hour. The main booking is an entry ticket. Current availability is listed below.