Archivio di Stato (Italia)

From the longer Italian Wikipedia page

The State Archive, in Italy, is an archive whose skills consist in the conservation and surveillance of the archival and documentary heritage owned by the Italian Republic and in its accessibility to public and free consultation.

With the formation of the Kingdom of Italy, within the state there was a varied situation of archival institutes derived from discontinued administrations and with archives partly dependent on the Ministry of the Interior and partly by the Ministry of Education.

This situation was even more complicated by the subsequent acquisitions of Mantua, Venice and Rome.

By decree of 15 March 1870, the Cibrario commission was established by the ministers of the interior and public education to establish a reorganization of the state archives; the commission's report, delivered on April 13, suggested the consolidation of the archives under the dependency of the Ministry of the Interior (with a majority of one vote) and the establishment of nine superintendencies; he also attached an indication of the costs of the services and a regulation scheme for the archives. In 1874 this unification was applied, the Council of Archives was then created as an advisory body to the Ministry of the Interior, the Archival superintendencies and the "schools of paleography and archival doctrine" in the main archives. Also in 1874 the provinces under the jurisdiction of the ten Superintendencies were established (adding Rome).

In 1875 the Central Archive of the Kingdom was also established, for the conservation of the documentation of historical interest produced by the central state administration (later called the Central State Archive).

Between 1874 and 1892 other State Archives were created in Bologna, in Massa and in Reggio Emilia.

For several years then the number of State Archives remained stable; only in 1926 were the State Archives created in Trento and Trieste (with two sections in Bolzano and Rijeka). The Bolzano State Archives were then established in 1930.

An investigation into the situation of the State Archives was conducted in 1927 by Mario Ferrigni for Corriere della Sera, highlighting the problems of the various Italian offices.

In 1932 the provincial archives, which had been subject to the provinces since 1866, were inserted among the state archives taking the name of the provincial state archives : Agrigento, L'Aquila, Avellino, Bari, Caltanissetta, Campobasso, Catania, Catanzaro, Chieti, Cosenza , Foggia, Lecce, Messina, Potenza, Reggio Calabria, Salerno Syracuse, Teramo and Trapani; the Archive of Caserta, due to the suppression of the province, had become a section of the Naples State Archive. The Trani and Lucera archives became sections of the Bari and Foggia archives.

With the reform of 1939 it was established that a State Archive was present in each province; moreover, all the archives took the name of State Archives.

With a subsequent reform of 1963 the Superior Council of Archives was established at the Ministry of the Interior, the rules for personnel, restoration and reproduction of documents were changed.

Starting in 1974, the State Archives began to depend on the newly created Ministry of Cultural and Environmental Heritage instead of on the Ministry of the Interior.

The State Archives are sections of the Regional Directorate for Cultural and Landscape Heritage (DRBCP), territorial bodies of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities. From a technical-scientific point of view they depend on the General Directorate for Archives of the MiBAC.

In every Italian provincial capital there is a State Archive; they are concentration archives.

The Italian State Archives are 103 in all and their purposes are:

perform functions relating to the treatment and *communication of confidential documents; carry out promotional activities; they take care of the study, research, sorting, inventory, reproduction and conservation of the preserved documents.
 * conservation, protection and enhancement of the documentary patrimony of the peripheral bodies of the State (e.g. prefectures, police headquarters, regional directorates of ministries, etc.), ie all offices directly dependent on ministries;
 * the documents of the judicial and administrative bodies of the State no longer necessary for the ordinary needs of the service and acquired pursuant to article 41 of the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape;
 * all other archives and individual documents that the State has in its possession or in deposit by law or other title;
 * exercise oversight through participation in the commissions set up (pursuant to art.41 of the Code) on the current and depository archives of the administrative and judicial bodies of the State and on the management of document flows, whatever their support, also based on the current legislation on substitute reproduction of digital documents and electronic document management;

The archives produced by the administrations of the pre-unitary states are kept in the State Archives.

Unlike the State Archives, the Archival Superintendencies, present in each region with headquarters in the capital, are responsible for supervising the correct conservation and protection of the archives of territorial (regions, provinces and municipalities) and non-territorial public bodies (INPS, Chambers of Commerce, ASL, Bank of Italy, etc.) and private ones declared cultural property.

The technical name of his control task is "surveillance" (in an meaning that also wants to lead to the enhancement of the documentation). In seventeen Italian state archives there are also the Archival, Palaeography and Diplomatic Schools; they have as their objective the professional training of the scientific staff employed by the archival administration and of all those who wish to undertake the profession of archivist.

The Sections of the State Archives are thirty-five (the law establishes a maximum number of forty): they are institutions similar to the State Archives, but located in a municipality that is not the capital, and subordinate to the State Archives of the capital. These are archives formed historically with a relevant quality and quantity and which, according to the principle of territorial relevance, it would be inconsiderate to move elsewhere since they are closely linked to the territory where they are located.

Unlike the State Archives, the Central State Archive preserves the documentation of the central offices of the state administration (ministries, Council of State , Court of Auditors, etc.), the originals of laws and decrees (including that of the Constitution Italian), minutes of some parliamentary inquiries, government documents, decrees registered at the Court of Auditors, papers from the Ministry of Real Home and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (1876 - 1976), the minutes of the Council itself, the documentation of the Court of Cassation and that of the military Courts and theSpecial Court for the Defense of the State.

The ACS houses an important collection of correspondence of personalities from the political, military, artistic and cultural world, from the Risorgimento period to the present day. The Institute also collects the documentation of numerous suppressed and non-suppressed public bodies, including: the National Combatant Opera (1920-1978), the EUR Body (1936-1945), the IRI (1920-1960) and the 'ENEL (1920-1960) [ENEL was founded in 1962].

An important photographic heritage is kept in the ACS, both in autonomous series and within the various archival series. Some important documentary sources are preserved in microfilm (Allied Commission of Control and Allied Military Government), on CD (the Archives of the Communist International) and on video cassettes (the Italian collection of interviews of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education).

In the fund called "Fascist Archives" are kept the papers of the particular secretariat of Benito Mussolini, of the Fascist National Party, of the Voluntary Militia for National Security , of the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution, of the Black Brigades , of the Republican National Guard, the one indicated as " RSI-Miscellanea "and the Republican Fascist Party.

The archives of the Central Committee of National Liberation and of Brescia are kept in the Institute from the period of the Italian Resistance. The archives of private individuals and families (for example that of Gabriele D'Annunzio ) and of political parties or movements, trade unions, associations and committees are also kept.

The Presidency of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the two chambers of the Italian Parliament, the Constitutional Court and the General Staff of the four Armed Forces do not enter the ACS and therefore keep the documentation in their own historical archive.

There are 103 State Archives in Italy, one per province with headquarters in the capital.

There are also 35 sections of the State Archives with headquarters in important cities that are not provincial capitals that have important documentary assets and have not been transferred to the headquarters of the competent State Archives: this is because, according to the principle of territorial relevance, it would be reckless to transfer elsewhere since they are closely related to the territory where they are based.