THE VATICAN SECRET ARCHIVES:
TODAY
 |
Some volumes of the fond of the Archivio
della Nunziatura Apostolica in Monaco
(di Baviera)
|
On the 16 th February 2003, the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, granted scholars the access to the documents kept in the archives of the Section for State Relations, of the Secretariat of State (formerly the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs) and in the archives of the Apostolic Nunciature in Munich and Berlin, regarding the relations between the Holy See and Germany in the period between 1922 and 1939. In addition, the liberalisation of the access to the consultation of the documents of the papacy of Pius XI (up to February 1939) has been announced for the upcoming 2006.
Today, the entire documentation kept in the Vatican Secret Archives occupies eighty-five linear kilometres of bookshelves gathered in over six hundred and thirty different fonds (a fond is a body of records with its own unitary nature) and constantly growing (each year the various papal delegations throughout the world, the Secretariat of State and the various Congregations deposit hundreds of pieces in the Archives), and covers a continued chronological space of over 800 years (from 1198 onwards, with sporadic documents belonging to the X and XI Centuries). The most ancient document preserved in the Vatican Archives is the famous Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum, an ancient book with the statements of the Papal Chancery dating back to VIII Century.
In brief, these are the numbers of the Vatican Secret Archives. These Archives cross over the geographical borders of what used to be the temporal dominion of the Church, what once used to be the main institution of production and receiver of the papers there preserved, thus reaching beyond the Orbis christianus (for example, the Archives preserve the most ancient documents written in Mongolian language dating back to the second half of the XIII Century).
The storerooms and the premises of the Archives have considerably increased throughout the centuries.
 |
One of the corridors of the new premises of the Vatican Secret Archives wanted
by Pope Montini and inaugurated on 18th October 1980 by the Pontiff John Paul II
|
The Vatican Secret Archives today have two reading rooms, admitting about 1500 scholars from over 60 Countries every year, an index room, an internal library, a laboratory for preservation, restoration and bookbinding, a laboratory for the restoration and the study of seals, a laboratory for photography and digital reproduction, a data processing centre and a computer laboratory, and an administration service (secretariats and a treasurer’s office). The scientific (officials) and the auxiliary personnel follow an established internal career and are subject to the provisions of a special Statute and of the Regulations of the same Archives, approved by the Pontiff.
 |
The Leo XIII Hall
|
Annexed to the Archives there is The Vatican School of Palaeography, Diplomatics and Archive Administration , founded by Leo XIII in 1884.
|
