ARCHIVIO. — Etymologically, it derives from ἀρχέων, the magistrate’s palace where the records of the magistracy were kept. Among the Greeks, however, it was called χαρτο-φυλάκιον or γραμματο-φυλάκιον; among the Romans: archium, archivum, tabularium, grapharium, chartularium or chartarium publicum, sacrarium, scrinium, etc.
In the proper sense, by a. we mean a collection of records concerning an individual or a community, arranged for the purpose of safeguarding administrative, political, and legal interests, or also for the purpose of purely historical documentation. Archives are generally classified, from various perspectives, as general and particular, active and inactive, current and deposit archives. According to provenance, the principal classification is based on the division into civil and ecclesiastical archives.
I. CIVIL ARCHIVES
Among the Italian civil archives, the following should be recalled:1. The state archives, which are directly subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior through the Superior Council of Archives and the Executive Committee operating within the Council, and comprise:
a) The Archive of the Republic, located in Rome, which chiefly gathers archival material originating from the departments of the central government.
b) The State Archives, numbering 20 and located in the principal Italian cities, of which the 9 largest (Torino, Genova, Milano, Venezia, Bologna, Firenze, Roma, Napoli, Palermo) exercise supervisory functions over all the minor archives within a given regional district under their jurisdiction.
c) The Sections of the State Archives, established in the provincial capitals in the number of 74, each answerable to the respective archival supervisory authority competent for its territory.
2. The archives of non-state public bodies, among which should be listed the archives of autonomous bodies, municipalities and provinces, parastatal bodies, auxiliary bodies of the State, public-law credit institutions, trade-union associations, public institutions for assistance and charitable relief, etc.
3. The notarial archives, which are divided into district, mandamental, and municipal archives, unless they exist as sections of the State Archives or of the Sections of the State Archives.
4. Private archives, which are likewise subject by law to particular supervision by the supervisory authority of the archival district to which they belong.
The current legal organization of the archives is regulated by Law no. 2006 of 22 December 1939.
II. ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHIVES
Among ecclesiastical archives, the following should be mentioned: the Pontifical Archive, the diocesan archive, the parish archive, and other minor archives.1. Vatican Pontifical Archive (v. ARCHIVIO).
2. Diocesan archive
In every episcopal curia there is a diocesan archive, divided into two distinct sections, the public and the secret, in which the acts, instruments, and documents concerning diocesan spiritual and temporal affairs are collected and preserved; all of them must be recorded in the catalogue or inventory of the archive itself.In the public section are arranged the acts and documents accessible to anyone having an interest in them.
In the secret section are cautiously preserved those acts which, either by their nature or by legal prescription, must remain secret. Only the bishop or the apostolic administrator is permitted to open the secret archive alone and examine its papers. In the event of the vacancy of the episcopal see, the custody of the secret archive is subject to particular regulations.
The canonical legislation concerning the diocesan archive is contained in cann. 372–84 of the CIC.
3. Parish archive
Can. 470, § 4, obliges every parish priest to maintain his own parish archive, whose upkeep and custody constitute a grave duty, enforced by severe penal sanctions (cann. 2383, 2406). parish registers (v.), the register de statu animarum, the official acts and communications of the ordinary and of the curia, official correspondence, and every other document whose preservation necessity or usefulness may suggest are kept there; in addition, the registers, inventories, and documents concerning the church board or church and the parish benefice, with separate inventories (cann. 1522, n. 3, 1523, n. 6; circular of the Sacra Congr. Conc. 20 Sept. 1929).The parish archive too is subject to the obligation of an inventory, one copy of which must be deposited in the diocesan archive (can. 383). Except for secret documents, the parish archive too is accessible to the public (can. 384).
4. Other ecclesiastical archives to be mentioned are: the archives of cathedral and collegiate churches (chapter archives); the archives of confraternities and other works dependent on ecclesiastical bodies, which likewise are required to have an inventory, one copy of which must be deposited in the diocesan archive (can. 383); and the archives of religious institutes, abbeys, monasteries, and convents.
Zaccaria da S. Mauro
SPECIAL PROVISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHIVES. — Ecclesiastical archives, insofar as they contain documents of historical interest, are inherently inalienable, being considered among the «bona praetiosa» cited in the CIC (cann. 1497, § 2; 1532, § 1).
Among the provisions adopted by the Holy See for the preservation of ecclesiastical archives in recent decades, a series of letters sent by the Cardinal Secretary of State to the Ordinaries of Italy should be recalled. In a first letter of 30 Sept. 1902, instructions were given for the compilation of inventories, and a «Forma di regolamento per la custodia e l'uso degli a. e delle biblioteche ecclesiastiche» was sent; in another of 12 Dec. 1907, the establishment in every diocese of a permanent commission for monuments and documents was ordered, with the task of first drafting «un semplice, ma esatto catalogo dei documenti». Again, on 15 Apr. 1923, compliance with the previous letters was reiterated, announcing the institution at the Vatican Secret Archive of a course in archival science specifically dedicated to the clergy, which began in Jan. of the following year.
In relation to these provisions, many of the major ecclesiastical archives in Italy were reorganized according to modern and scientific principles; in some chapters, the office of canon-archivist was established, to be conferred upon a competent person.
However, the protection of minor and recent archives also presents itself as an important requirement of modern times: particularly in Italy, where the law on archives of 22 Dec. 1939 subjects all archives of historical interest, both public and private, to state supervision, except for ecclesiastical ones.
Therefore, by express mandate of the Holy Father, Card. G. Mercati, Archivist of the Holy Roman Church, with a letter of 1 Nov. 1942 (AAS, 34 [1942], pp. 384-89), requested from the Ordinaries of Italy precise information on the existence and content of the individual archives under their jurisdiction, whether capitular, parochial, or of any other entity: to facilitate the work, extensive pre-prepared forms were sent. Thus, for the first time, a census of the ecclesiastical archives of Italy was carried out, along with the collection of their summary inventories, which would be preserved at the Vatican Secret Archive.
It should also be recalled that during the Second World War, in the period 1943-45, the Holy See intervened with the Italian civil authorities, as well as with the German and Allied military occupation authorities, for the protection of archives entrusted to its direct jurisdiction by virtue of the Concordat (cf. Rapporto finale sugli A., published by the Allied Commission, Subcommission for Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives, Rome 1946); following an inquiry conducted in Sept. 1945, it was found that 779 ecclesiastical archives had been destroyed or damaged due to war, including 53 episcopal or archiepiscopal ones (v. the report by G. Battelli, in Riv. di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, 1 [1947], pp. 113-16 and 306-308).
Giulio Battelli
### III. HISTORY OF ARCHIVES
The origins of archives date back to a very remote era. The Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chaldeans certainly had archives: evidence of this is provided by the cuneiform inscriptions discovered in the mid-nineteenth century among the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, which preserve testimonies of the activities of those kings, and by the clay tablets found at el-Amarna in Egypt. The Bible also preserves the memory of Babylonian archives in the book of Ezra (5:17 and 6:1-2). Furthermore, the Bible (Ezra 2:62; I Chr. 9:1 and II Chr. 34:30) informs us that the Israelites kept in the Temple the acts that possessed a more solemn character. More numerous and certain information, however, is available regarding Greek and Roman archives, as well as their systematic organization.
From the earliest period of its history, Greece was concerned with preserving the documents of its public and private life; but only later did organized conservation begin, which, starting in Athens, would extend to many Greek cities and serve as a model for future institutions, including Roman ones. In Athens, the first repository of state documents was the Areopagus, where they were already present in the time of Solon, entrusted to the custody of one of the seven νομοφύλακες. From the Areopagus, they were later transferred to the Bouleuterion and from there to the temple of Cybele, the famous Metroon. The superintendent was the Πρύτανις ἐπιστάτης, from whom depended, in hierarchical order, the γραμματεύς τῆς Βουλῆς, the ὑπογραμματεύς, and the δημόσιοι.
Among the Romans, the temples of Juno, Ceres, Saturn, and other deities were the first repositories of public acts, in any way concerning the state, under the custody of the priests themselves and the magistrates, who were initially the censors, then the quaestors, and later the prefects. However, the first public building, which later remained the only one, purposely intended to collect the documents of the Roman state, was the Tabularium, built at the initiative and expense of the consul Quintus Lutatius Catulus in 78 B.C. on the Capitoline Hill, overlooking the Forum on one side and the Campus Martius on the other, entrusted to the care of the magister census, who availed himself, for the performance of various services, of tabularii, adintores tabularii, and opportores. The material deposited and preserved here, ordered chronologically and by subject, was frequently consulted by scholars, according to the testimony of Tacitus (Dial. 39) and Cicero (Pro Milone, 27). Not only in Rome but also in the provinces of the empire flourishing archives arose, though under the different name of Gesta municipalia; and Constantinople also had its own archive when the empire was divided into West and East. Nevertheless, the wise organization of archives, as established by Rome, did not long survive the fall of the empire, especially due to the progressive disintegration of imperial administration under the pressure of barbarian invasions and their consequences.
The glorious tradition of archival repositories, so highly esteemed in classical antiquity, thus declined, and apart from the archive founded in Aachen by Charlemagne, we have almost no other record of document collections in all the states that arose from the ruins of the Roman Empire.
The merit of having saved from dispersion much of the documentation prior to the 11th century belongs to ecclesiastical archives (first among them the archive of the Roman Church), the only ones that maintained, even amid such dissolution of times and institutions, their historical continuity. The dominant reasons that favored the preservation of such material, precious for universal culture, were primarily the care that the Church itself always took in safeguarding all documentation that could in any way concern it, and the respect that was always accorded to sacred places.
However, it is necessary to reach the middle of the 4th century to obtain certain information about the official archive of the Holy See, whose origin is certainly prior to the Constantinian peace. We know, in fact, that Pope Julius I (341-52) ordered the collection and preservation of all acts concerning donations and legacies made to the Church (cf. Liber Pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, I, p. 205); while the first seat of the Popes' archive was that established by Damasus I (366-84) in the basilica of St. Lawrence (later called in Damaso in his honor), as can be deduced from the inscription engraved on one of the architraves: "Archibis, fateor, volui nova condere tecta" (A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana, Città del Vaticano 1942, n. 57, p. 210). It remained there until around the middle of the 7th century, when it was transferred to the Lateran Palace.
Contemporaneously with this Lateran archive, another repository was established at the Confession of the basilica of St. Peter, where important documents were jealously guarded, including the cantio sworn by the archbishop of Ravenna Felix, the donations of Pepin and Charlemagne, and the pactum of Otto I. A third archive arose around 1083 at the foot of the Palatine, near the Arch of Titus, in the so-called Turris chartularia, which primarily collected documents relating to the administration of the Holy See's properties and the registers of income and expenses (cf. E. Casanova, p. 307).
It is also necessary to duly emphasize monastic archives, which have preserved precious collections of parchments, cartularies, and codices. Although primarily concerning the economic life, so to speak, of the various monasteries—consisting mainly of contracts of different kinds—these collections have the merit of documenting their activity and economic prosperity, as well as the order existing in their administration. Among the many, it suffices to recall the archives of the abbeys of Montecassino, Subiaco, Farfa, San Salvatore del Monte Amiata, and countless other monastic centers in Italy and abroad.
The history of archives begins to clarify again starting from the 11th century, when the development of the communal phenomenon is witnessed, more so in Italy than elsewhere. The changed living conditions of Italian cities due to the resumption of trade, the restored administrative and judicial autonomy of urban centers, the formation of guilds of arts and crafts, and the rapid and progressive demographic growth all enter into the great transformation of medieval society, from which those nuclei emerged that, gradually expanding, would free themselves from central authority to create their own independence. Consequently, new needs arise and new demands affect the fields of politics, law, economics, and finance. All these new forces now feel the necessity for documentation that gives value to every act, every agreement, every interest of theirs. Hence the multiplication of charters, instruments, and registers where the activity of every single institution is channeled; hence, too, the care taken for the collection and preservation of documents, which we find already distinguished by offices and by subject chronologically, albeit with a rudimentary order, and the provisions issued by this or that commune to guarantee their integrity. And since, unlike the French, English, and German communes, which remained purely urban organisms, the Italian commune presents itself as a true territorial state, it can be affirmed that its archive is a true state archive, also and especially because the material preserved therein does not represent only the interest of the individual but concerns the right of the entire community. Similarly, the archives of the Swabian and Angevin kings in southern Italy were organized, as demonstrated by the studies of E. Shamer and B. Capasso.
BIBL.:
Per gli a. antichi: E. Cuq, Les institutions juridiques des Romains, Parigi 1902; P. Guiraud, La propriété foncière en Grèce jusqu'à la conquête romaine, Parigi 1893; G. Corradi, Storia delle colonie greche, Torino 1924; E. Pais, Storia di Roma, I, Torino 1898; Th. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, Lipsia 1887-88; E. de Ruggiero, Il «Tabularium» e gli archivi romani, in Bull. dell'Ist. di dir. rom., 1895; G. Costa, Storia del diritto romano pubblico e privato, Torino 1921; per gli a. ecclesiastici: L. Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis, Parigi 1886-92; P. Kehr, Italia Pontificia, Berlino 1906 ss.; E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, Tubinga 1930-33; per gli a. monastici: L. H. Cottineau, Répertoire topo-bibliographique des abbayes et prieurés, Mâcon 1935-39; per gli a. comunali: C. Manaresi, Gli atti del Comune di Milano nel sec. XIII, Milano 1919; G. Volpe, Studi sulle istituzioni comunali a Pisa, Pisa 1902; per gli a. svevi ed angioini: E. Shamer, Die Urkunden der normannisch-sicilischen Könige, Innsbruck 1902; B. Capasso, Monumenta ad Neapolitani ducatus historiam pertinentia, Napoli 1881.
Giulio Battelli
The period of the Italian communes thus holds particular importance for the history of archives, to the extent that it is not unreasonable to assert that municipal archives contain the germ of modern archives.
However, this development, which could have extended even when the commune was replaced by the signoria in the 14th century and subsequently in the 15th, suffered a setback due to political struggles, although measures intended to regulate the life of archives were not lacking even in this period. Examples include those implemented in various phases by the communes of Florence and Siena and in 1325 by the commune of Bologna, as well as the ordinances issued in the Kingdom of Naples by Sancia of Majorca in 1338 and by Joanna of Anjou in 1347 and 1354. Nevertheless, the rise of signorie and then principalities in Italy and the consolidation of the great European monarchies marked a rebirth for archives, which were now entirely subservient to the policy and interests of the lord or sovereign, as demonstrated by the appellations of royal, ducal, etc., added to the common denomination.
Consequently, from that time began the slow but progressive process of concentrating archives, which found its logical correspondence, on the other hand, in the centralizing nature assumed by the State. This process gradually led to the establishment of general archives. The first attempt of this kind was made in Innsbruck in 1506 by Maximilian I of Habsburg, followed later by Ferdinand I, although it is necessary to reach the reign of Maria Theresa to find most of the documents concerning the empire gathered in the "Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv," founded by her in Vienna in 1749. Far more decisive was the centralizing action carried out in Spain by Charles V, who in 1543 made the castle of Simancas the "Archivo de la Corona de Castilla." This action was pursued with greater vigor by his son Philip II, who employed the historian Girolamo Zurita for the recovery and collection of state documents, and also by Philip IV, who issued the 1633 regulations.
After a series of unsuccessful attempts by Sixtus IV (1471-84) to Sixtus V (1585-90) to unite the various pontifical archives into an organic whole, the Church also succeeded in concentrating most of its documents in the Vatican through the work of Paul V, who in 1612 founded the current Vatican Secret Archive, entrusting its custody to Baldassarre Amidei.
Similar attempts were made elsewhere, with varying degrees of success, such as in France by Richelieu, Fouquet, and Colbert, and in England by Queen Elizabeth, who established the "State Papers Office" in 1578.
In conclusion and in correspondence with this broad organizational movement, which gradually took place within individual states, a literature on archival science emerged in the 17th century. It began with Niccolò Giussani's Methodus archivorum sive modus eadem texendi ac disponendi (Milan 1648), admirably opening the field to all future discussions. Among these, a prominent place in the following century was held by the debate over the use, in the classification of documents, of the subject-based system or the chronological system, advocated by two French archivists, P. C. Le Moine and J. C. Chevrières, respectively.
Another step forward in archival organization was taken with the French Revolution, when the Convention, with the law of 7 Messidor, Year II (25 June 1794), granted public access to archives.
The 19th and 20th centuries offer a series of measures taken in favor of archives by various states, as well as the impetus given by them to the publication of inventories, so that they might reveal to the scholarly world—with the obvious utility—what treasures of information each archive may contain.
Today, the study of problems concerning archives is not confined to the national sphere but assumes a character of international collaboration. To this end, the "Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle" (I.I.C.I.) operates, to which we owe the highly interesting Guide International des Archives, and the "Commission des Archives," established by the "Comité International des Sciences Historiques." Vedi CLASSIFICAZIONE, SISTEMI di.
BIBL.:
E. Sebastiani, Genesi, concetto e natura giuridica degli a. di Stato in Italia, Torino 1904; P. Taddei, L'archivista, Milano 1906; S. Muller, J. A. Feith, R. Fruin, Handleiding voor het Ordenen en Beschrijven van Archieven, trad. ital. di G. Vittani e G. Bonelli, Torino 1908; G. Holtzinger, Handbuch der Registratur- und Archivwissenschaft, Lipsia 1908; J. Cuveller, Rôle des archives, Bruxelles 1911; N. Barone, Lezioni di archivistica, Napoli 1922; H. Jenkinson, A manual of Archive Administration Including the Problem of War Archives and Archives, Oxford 1922; P. Pecchini, Manuale pratica per gli archivisti delle pubbliche amministrazioni e degli archivi notarili, 2ª ed., Milano 1928; E. Casanova, Archivistica, 2ª ed., Siena 1928; S. Pistolese, Développement et caractère des archives du nazisme siècle à nos jours, in Archivi d'Italia, 2ª serie, 1 (1933-34), pp. 251-98. Niccolò Del Re