Dante, Machiavelli and Galileo Soon to be Available on Google Books

The Italian government has signed a deal with Google to put the contents of two national libraries on the internet, reports BBC News.

Up to one million antiquarian books — including works by Dante, Machiavelli and Galileo — will be scanned and made available free on Google Books.

"Google will cover the costs of scanning all these works and will set up a scanning centre in Italy," making them available on its Google Books website, the company said in a statement.

"This is our first agreement with a national government's culture ministry," Nikesh Arora, the head of Google's global sales operations, told a news conference, reports AP.

Mario Resca of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage said the deal would help save the books' content forever, noting that the 1966 Florence flood ruined thousands of books in the city's library.

Previous attempts by Google to scan books have run into legal troubles in the US and France.