Ulderico Rolandi (Roma, 23/07/1874 – 03/12/1951) was a gynaecologist by profession, but also a critic and collector, who was actively involved in music studies. In 1893, Rolandi bought a small nucleus of opera librettos, which formed the core of his vast collection, which he increased until his death to about 21,500 examples, printed, manuscript and typescript. It consists of 16th-century librettos, librettos from the 17th to 19th century, special editions (librettos belonging to sovereigns, special formats, librettos written for theatre openings, censorships written by police and prefectures, bilingual volumes and ballet librettos). The Rolandi collection also includes a collection of musical scores and papers, musicology volumes, study materials, press reviews in the field of interest and theatrical iconographic material.

Over the years, the librettos collection has been the subject of various enhancement projects. From the 1970s until 1986 there was a collaboration with the Enciclopedia Italiana, founded by Giovanni Treccani. The project aimed to catalogue the entire collection and publish the catalogue in several volumes. Only a specimen of the first volume was published in 1986, and no others followed. From 1987 to 1990 with A.CO.M. (Archivio Computerizzato Musicale Veneto) project, a special database was created to catalogue librettos. At the end of the project, the collection was almost entirely catalogued and all the records produced were subsequently transferred to the Catalogue of the National Library Service (OPAC SBN). From 2005 to 2008, the Echo Project was carried out, whose aim was to digitise the entire collection and reclaim all the A.CO.M. records on the SBN OPAC. At the end of the project, 1119 booklets were digitised and most of the SBN records were reclaimed.