We describe a new catalogue of strong ltalian earthquakes that the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica in collaboration with SGA, has recently made available to the international scientific community and to the general public. The new catalogue differs from previous efforts in that for each event the usual seismic parameters are complemented by a list of intensity rated localities, a complete list of relevant references, a series of synoptic comments describing different aspects of the earthquake phenomenology. and in most cases even the text of the original written sources. The printed part of the catalogue has been published as a special monograph which contains also a computer version of the full database in the form of a CD-ROM. The software package includes a computer program for retrieving, selecting and displaying the catalogue data.