Google will set up scanning centres in Rome and Florence to scan up to one million old books from Italy's two national libraries. (Mark Lennihan/Associated Press)

Google has reached a deal with Italy, which would allow the online search engine to digitize the contents of that country's two national libraries to be made available for free over the internet.

Many classic works, such as those of Machiavelli, Dante, Galileo and writings by German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler, will be part of the project.

Italy's culture ministry made the deal in order to preserve the country's masterworks. The country has a short supply of librarians and archive budgets are tight.

With Google's help, two scanning centers, employing 100 people, will be set up in Rome and Florence to scan up to one million old books.

Since all the works were published before 1868, there is no copyright issue.

Google will also provide the two libraries with digital copies of the books.

The agreement is similar to deals the company has with Columbia University in New York City and public libraries in that city as well as ones in Germany and France.

Google's book scanning project has run into legal troubles in the United States and France.

A French court ruled that the company had committed copyright violation, involving three publishers, by scanning entire books or excerpts and putting them online. Google is appealing the ruling.

Google also had to settle a 2005 class action lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers, which alleged copyright infringement.