Graziano Tonelli was born in Follo (SP) in 1954 and, after having attended the Faculty of Law at the University of Parma, in 1979 he started working as Librarian for the Department of Cultural Assets in the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma.
He specialized in the filing and cataloguing of manuscript and printed musical sources in the Musical Section of the Institute in the prestigious conservatory “A. Boito” in Parma.
In that period he participated to the organization and preparation of many exhibitions among which “I Tesori della Palatina” (1990), “G.B. Bodoni nell’Europa Classica” (1990), “Monteverdi, al quale ognuno deve cedere” (1993), the publication of scientific articles on magazines specialized in music and the filing of some rare records as the fond “Avvisi Teatrali e Fogli Volanti” and the important collection of letters “Verdi-Ricordi” .
In 1998 he moved to the State Archives in La Spezia that he managed from 2001 to 2005 participating in those years to many conferences and study days.
In 2004 he planned the exhibition “Il sommergibile italiano dal Delfino allo Sciré” (Museo Tecnico Navale in La Spezia) for the celebration of the centenary of the building of the first class of Italian submarines, and the conference “I Sommergibili italiani. Origine ed evoluzione” organized by the Department in collaboration with the Italian Navy.
His last publications are “Acqua ed energia per la Provincia. L’Acam ed i suoi predecessori dalle origini alla Seconda Guerra Mondiale” (La Spezia, 2004) on the history of the Municipal Company for water and gas and the volume “La Spezia e il suo Porto”, published in 2005.
Since January 2006 he has been working for the Archival Superintendence Office of Liguria, taking care of the control of business and industrial archives in Liguria.
In 2006 he organized the exhibition “Navi, Cantieri ed Armamenti in Liguria. Un percorso documentaria nel Museo Tecnico Navale della Spezia” within the initiative “Un Mare di Archivi”.