Archive overview | |
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Formed | 1612 |
Headquarters | Cortile del Belvedere, Vatican City [1] 41°54′17″N12°27′17″E / 41.90472°N 12.45472°E |
Archive executives |
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Website | www |
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The Vatican Apostolic Archive (Latin : Archivum Apostolicum Vaticanum; Italian : Archivio Apostolico Vaticano), formerly known as the Vatican Secret Archive, [2] [3] is the central repository in the Vatican City of all acts promulgated by the Holy See.
The Pope, as the sovereign of Vatican City, owns the material held in the archive until his death or resignation, with ownership passing to his successor. The archive also contains state papers, correspondence, account books, [4] and many other documents that the church has accumulated over the centuries.
Pope Paul V separated the Secret Archive from the Vatican Library, where scholars had some very limited access, and the archive remained closed to outsiders until the late 19th century, when Pope Leo XIII opened the archive to researchers, more than a thousand of whom now examine some of its documents each year. [5]
The use of the word secret in the former title, "Vatican Secret Archive", does not denote the modern meaning of confidentiality. A fuller and perhaps better translation of the archive's former Latin name may be the "private Vatican Apostolic archive", indicating that its holdings are the pope's personal property, not those of any particular department of the Roman Curia or the Holy See. The word secret continues to be used in this older, original sense in the English language, in phrases such as secret servants, secret cupbearer, or secretary, much like an esteemed position of honour and regard comparable to a VIP. [6] One study in 1969 stated that use of the term secret was merited, as the archives' cataloguing system was so inadequate that it remained "an extensive buried city, a Herculaneum inundated by the lava of time ... secret as an archeological dig is secret". [7]
Despite the change in name, parts of the archive do remain classified in the modern sense of the word secret; most of these classified materials, which are actively denied to outsiders, relate to contemporary personalities and activities, including everything dated after 1958, as well as the private records of church figures after 1922. [8] [9]
On 28 October 2019, Pope Francis issued an Apostolic Letter motu proprio dated 22 October, renaming the archives from the Vatican Secret Archive to the Vatican Apostolic Archive. [2] [3]
In the 1st century of Christianity, the Church had already acquired, and begun to assemble, a sizable collection of records. Known alternately as the Holy Scrinium or the Chartarium, these records normally travelled with the current pope. [7]
In later centuries, as the Church amassed power, popes would visit heads of state to negotiate treaties or make political appearances around Europe. Popes would also have multiple places of residency. When they travelled for diplomatic or other purposes, they would take their archives with them, since they needed it for administrative work. This resulted in some loss of items. [7]
Initially, the archival materials of the Church were stored at the Lateran Palace, then the official papal residence. [7]
By the 11th century, the archives of the church were devolved to at least three separate sites: the Lateran, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Palatine palace. [7]
When the Popes moved to Avignon, the process of transporting their archives took twenty years, all told. The various places where the archives were kept along the way were sacked by the Ghibellines three separate times, in 1314, 1319, and 1320. [7]
Antipopes also had their own archives. The Western Schism resulted in two sets of papal archives being developed at once; this rose to three during the era of Pisan antipope John XXIII. [7] The disparate archives of the rival papal claimants were not fully reunited in the Vatican's archives until 1784. [7]
During the 1404 sack of the Vatican, papal registers and historical documents were thrown into the streets, and Pope Innocent VII fled the city. His successor, Pope Gregory XII, supposedly sold off a large number of archival materials in 1406, including some of the papal registers. [7]
In 1612, Pope Paul V ordered all Church records assembled in one place. [7]
As Napoleon Bonaparte conquered the states on the Italian peninsula in the 1790s, he demanded works of art and manuscripts as tribute. His armistice with Holy See on 23 June 1796 stipulated that "the Pope shall deliver to the French Republic one hundred pictures, busts, vases or statues ... and five hundred manuscripts", all chosen by French agents. The 1798 Treaty of Tolentino made even greater demands, and the works sent to Paris included the Codex Vaticanus , the oldest extant manuscript of the Bible in Greek.
By the time Napoleon became emperor in 1804, he envisaged a central archive in Paris of the records and treasures of Europe. In 1809 he ordered the entire Vatican Archive transferred to Paris, and by 1813 more than 3,000 crates had been shipped, with only modest losses. [10] The Vatican archives were stored in the complex of the National Archives of France, on the grounds of the Hôtel de Soubise.
In April 1814, after Coalition troops entered Paris, the new French government ordered the archive returned, but provided inadequate financing. Vatican officials raised funds by selling some volumes as well as bundling documents for sale by weight. [lower-alpha 1] Inadequate funding led to losses en route, with one scholar of the period estimating that "about one-fourth to one-third of the archival materials that went to Paris never returned to the Vatican." [10] [lower-alpha 2] [ clarification needed ]
In 1855, Augustin Theiner, prefect of the Archive, began to publish multi-volume collections of documents from the archive. [5] His predecessor Marino Marini had produced an account of Galileo's trials that failed to satisfy scholars who saw it as an apology for the Inquisition. Beginning in 1867, Theiner and his successor granted individual scholars access to the manuscripts relating to the trial of Galileo, leading to a protracted dispute about their authenticity. [13] Scholarly access was briefly interrupted following the dissolution of the Papal States in 1870, when archive officials restricted access to assert their control against competing claims by the victorious Italian state. [14]
In 1879, Pope Leo XIII appointed as archivist Cardinal Josef Hergenröther, who immediately wrote a memo recommending that historians be allowed access to the archive. [14] Access had remained limited out of concern that Protestant researchers might use their access to slander or embarrass the Church. Hergenröther's approach led to Pope Leo ordering a reading room constructed for researchers; it opened on 1 January 1881. [15] When the German Protestant historian Theodor von Sickel, in April 1883, published the results of his research in the archive, which defended the Church against charges of forgery, [lower-alpha 3] Pope Leo was further persuaded. In August 1883 he wrote to the three cardinals who shared responsibility for the archives and praised the potential of historical research to clarify the role of the papacy in European culture and Italian politics. He announced that the archives would be open to research that was impartial and critical. In an address to the Görres Society in February 1884, Pope Leo said: "Go to the sources. That is why I have opened the archives to you. We are not afraid of people publishing documents out of them." [16] [17]
In 1979, historian Carlo Ginzburg sent a letter to the newly elected Pope John Paul II, asking that the archives of the Holy Office (the Roman Inquisition) be opened. Pope Benedict XVI said that letter was instrumental in the Vatican's decision to open those archives. [18]
Though the archive has developed policies that restrict access to material by pontificate, with access granted no earlier than 75 years after the close of a pope's reign, popes have granted exceptions. For example, Pope Paul VI made the records of the Second Vatican Council available not long after it ended. In 2002, Pope John Paul II allowed scholars access to documents from the historical archives of the Secretariat of State (Second Section) pertaining to the Holy See's relations with Germany during the pontificate of Pope Pius XI (1922–1939) in order "to put an end to unjust and thoughtless speculation" about the Church's relationship with the Nazi Party. [19]
Following the success of the controversial 2008 film Angels & Demons , adapted from the Dan Brown novel of the same name, which depicts a visit to the Archives, the Vatican opened the Archives to a select group of journalists in 2010 to dispute the film's treatment. [20]
In 2018, Pope Francis ordered the Vatican Archive to open documents which would assist in a "thorough study" concerning former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was accused of sexually molesting seminarians and having affairs with young priests. [21] [22]
Pope Francis announced on 4 March 2019 that materials relating to Pope Pius XII would be opened on 2 March 2020, stating that Pius' legacy had been "debated and even criticized (one might say with some prejudice or exaggeration)", that "The Church is not afraid of history", and that he anticipated "appropriate criticism". [23] [24] In addition to assessing Pius' response to the Holocaust, the archives of the papacy of Pope Pius XII should point to a much broader shift in global Christianity from Europe to the global South. [25] Since 2006, members of the archives department have been organising the estimated 16 million pages of documents in order to prepare them for viewing by researchers. [26]
The Vatican Apostolic Archive has been estimated to contain 85 kilometres (53 mi) of shelving, with 35,000 volumes in the selective catalogue alone. [27]
Complete archives of letters written by the popes, known as the papal registers, are available beginning with the papacy of Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216). A few registers of earlier popes also survive, including Pope John VIII (r. 872–882) and Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073–1085). [28]
Notable documents include Henry VIII of England's request for a marriage annulment, a handwritten transcript of the trial of Galileo for heresy, and letters from Michelangelo complaining he had not been paid for work on the Sistine Chapel. [9]
To mark the 400th anniversary of the Vatican Archives, 100 documents dating from the 8th to the 20th century were put on display from February to September 2012 in the "Lux in arcana – The Vatican Secret Archives reveals itself" exhibition held at the Capitoline Museums in Rome. They included the 1521 papal bull of excommunication of Martin Luther and a letter from Mary, Queen of Scots, written while awaiting her execution. [29]
The archive also supports its own photographic and conservation studios. [30]
The entrance to the Archive, adjacent to the Vatican Library, is through the Porta di Santa Anna in via di Porta Angelica (Rione of Borgo). In 1980, following modern renovations, new underground storage space was added. [31]
With limited exceptions, materials dated after 1939 were unavailable to researchers until 2 March 2020, when material from the tenure of Pope Pius XII (1939—1958) was opened for public access.
An entire section of the distinguished archives relating to the personal affairs of Cardinalship from 1922 onwards cannot be accessed. [8] [9] [33]
Early in the 21st century, the Vatican Apostolic Archives began an in-house digitization project, to attempt to both make the documents more available to researchers and to help to preserve aging physical documents. [34]
As of 2018 [update] , the archive had 180 terabytes of digital storage capacity, and had digitized over seven million images. [35]
In 2017, a project based in Roma Tre University called In Codice Ratio began using artificial intelligence and optical character recognition to attempt to transcribe more documents from the archives. [36] [37] While character-recognition software is adept at reading typed text, the cramped and many-serifed style of medieval handwriting makes distinguishing individual characters difficult for the software. [38] Many individual letters of the alphabet are often confused by human readers of medieval handwriting, let alone a computer program. The team behind In Codice Ratio tried to solve this problem by developing a machine-learning software that could parse this handwriting. Their program eventually achieved 96% accuracy in parsing this type of text. [39]
There are other Holy See archives in Rome, since each department of the Roman Curia has its own archives. The word "secret" in its modern sense can be applied to some of the material kept by the Apostolic Penitentiary, when it concerns matters of the internal forum; but registers of the rescripts that it issued up to 1564 have been deposited in the Vatican Apostolic Archives and are open for consultation by qualified scholars. Half of these have already been put in digital form for easier consultation. The confidentiality of the material means that, in spite of the centuries that have passed since 1564, special rules apply to its publication. [40]
Pope Pius XII was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. Before his election to the papacy, he served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio to Germany, and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with various European and Latin American nations, including the Reichskonkordat treaty with the German Reich.
Pope Paul VI was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council, which he closed in 1965, implementing its numerous reforms. He fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements. In January 1964, he flew to Jordan, the first time a reigning pontiff had left Italy in more than a century.
Vatican City, officially the Vatican City State, is a landlocked sovereign country, city-state, microstate, and enclave surrounded by, and historically a part of, Rome, Italy. It became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and is a distinct territory under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction" of the Holy See, which is itself a sovereign entity under international law, maintaining the city-state's temporal power, governance, diplomatic, and spiritual independence. The Vatican is also a metonym for the pope, the city-state's and worldwide Catholic Church government Holy See, and Roman Curia. The country has the world's smallest land area and the smallest population, with 764 citizens as of 2023.
Pope Pius IX was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest of any pope in history. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican Council in 1868 and for permanently losing control of the Papal States in 1870 to the Kingdom of Italy. Thereafter, he refused to leave Vatican City, declaring himself a "prisoner in the Vatican".
The Lateran Treaty was one component of the Lateran Pacts of 1929, agreements between the Kingdom of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel III and the Holy See under Pope Pius XI to settle the long-standing Roman question. The treaty and associated pacts were named after the Lateran Palace where they were signed on 11 February 1929, and the Italian parliament ratified them on 7 June 1929. The treaty recognised Vatican City as an independent state under the sovereignty of the Holy See. The Italian government also agreed to give the Roman Catholic Church financial compensation for the loss of the Papal States. In 1948, the Lateran Treaty was recognized in the Constitution of Italy as regulating the relations between the state and the Catholic Church. The treaty was significantly revised in 1984, ending the status of Catholicism as the sole state religion.
Traditionalist Catholicism is a movement that emphasizes beliefs, practices, customs, traditions, liturgical forms, devotions and presentations of teaching associated with the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Traditionalist Catholics particularly emphasize the Tridentine Mass, the Roman Rite liturgy largely replaced in general use by the post-Second Vatican Council Mass of Paul VI.
The Syllabus of Errors is the name given to a document issued by the Holy See under Pope Pius IX on 8 December 1864, as an appendix to his encyclical letter Quanta cura. It condemns a total of 80 propositions that the Pope considered to be errors or heresies.
The Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church is an office of the papal household that administers the property and revenues of the Holy See. Formerly, his responsibilities included the fiscal administration of the Patrimony of Saint Peter. As regulated in the apostolic constitution Pastor bonus of 1988, the Camerlengo is always a cardinal, though this was not the case prior to the 15th century. His heraldic arms are ornamented with two keys – one gold, one silver – in saltire, surmounted by an ombrellino, a canopy or umbrella of alternating red and yellow stripes. These also form part of the coat of arms of the Holy See during a papal interregnum. The Camerlengo has been Kevin Farrell since his appointment by Pope Francis on 14 February 2019. The Vice Camerlengo has been Archbishop Ilson de Jesus Montanari since 1 May 2020.
The Vatican Apostolic Library, more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, although it is much older—it is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. It has 75,000 codices from throughout history, as well as 1.1 million printed books, which include some 8,500 incunabula.
The history of the Catholic Church is integral to the history of Christianity as a whole. It is also, according to church historian Mark A. Noll, the "world's oldest continuously functioning international institution." This article covers a period of just under two thousand years.
The Secretariat of State is the oldest dicastery in the Roman Curia, the central papal governing bureaucracy of the Catholic Church. It is headed by the Cardinal Secretary of State and performs all the political and diplomatic functions of the Holy See. The Secretariat is divided into three sections: the Section for General Affairs, the Section for Relations with States, and, since 2017, the Section for Diplomatic Staff.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences is a scientific academy of the Vatican City, established in 1936 by Pope Pius XI. Its aim is to promote the progress of the mathematical, physical, and natural sciences and the study of related epistemological problems. The Accademia Pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei was founded in 1847 as a more closely supervised successor to the Accademia dei Lincei established in Rome in 1603 by the learned Roman Prince, Federico Cesi (1585–1630), who was a young botanist and naturalist, and which claimed Galileo Galilei as its president. The Accademia dei Lincei survives as a wholly separate institution.
The Archive of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, commonly referred to as the Archive of the Inquisition, contains the Catholic Church's documents dealing with doctrinal and theological issues related to church teaching. It also contains information on political trials that were carried out when the papacy had temporal power over the Papal States.
The Vatican Publishing House is a publisher established by the Holy See in 1926. It is responsible for publishing official documents of the Roman Catholic Church, including Papal bulls, event records, and encyclicals, as well as certain Secret Archive documents. On 27 June 2015, Pope Francis decreed that the Vatican Publishing House would eventually be incorporated into a newly established Secretariat for Communications in the Roman Curia.
The theology of Pope Pius XII is reflected in his forty-one encyclicals, as well as speeches and nearly 1000 messages, during his almost 20-year pontificate. The encyclicals Mystici corporis and Mediator Dei advanced the understanding of membership and participation in the Catholic Church. The encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu began opening the door to historical-critical biblical studies. But his magisterium was far larger and is difficult to summarize. In numerous speeches Catholic teaching is related to various aspects of life, education, medicine, politics, war and peace, the life of saints, Mary, the mother of God, things eternal and temporal.
The papacy of Pius XII began on 2 March 1939 and continued to 9 October 1958, covering the period of the Second World War and the Holocaust, during which millions of Jews were murdered by Adolf Hitler's Germany. Before becoming pope, Cardinal Pacelli served as a Vatican diplomat in Germany and as Vatican Secretary of State under Pius XI. His role during the Nazi period has been closely scrutinised and criticised. His supporters argue that Pius employed diplomacy to aid the victims of the Nazis during the war and, through directing his Church to provide discreet aid to Jews and others, saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Pius maintained links to the German Resistance, and shared intelligence with the Allies, but at the same time he developed alliances with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and even arranged secret negotiations with Hitler's envoys. His strongest public condemnation of genocide was, however, considered inadequate by the Allied Powers, while the Nazis viewed him as an Allied sympathizer who had dishonoured his policy of Vatican neutrality.
Pope Pius XII's response to the Roman razzia, or mass deportation of Jews, on October 16, 1943, is a significant issue relating to Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. Under Mussolini, no policy of abduction of Jews had been implemented in Italy. Following the capitulation of Italy in 1943, Nazi forces invaded and occupied much of the country, and began deportations of Jews to extermination camps. Pius XII protested at diplomatic levels, while several thousand Jews found refuge in Catholic networks, institutions and homes across Italy, including in Vatican City and Pope Pius' Summer Residence. The Catholic Church and some historians have credited this rescue in large part to the direction of Pope Pius XII. However, historian Susan Zuccotti researched the matter in detail and states that there is "considerable evidence of papal disapproval of the hiding of Jews and other fugitives in Vatican properties."
Vatican City pursued a policy of neutrality during World War II under the leadership of Pope Pius XII. Although the city of Rome was occupied by Germany from September 1943 and the Allies from June 1944, Vatican City itself was not occupied. The Vatican organised extensive humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the conflict.
The relationship between science and the Catholic Church has been both collaborative and contentious throughout history. Historically, the Catholic Church has served as a major patron of the sciences, playing an influential role in the establishment and funding of educational institutions, universities, and hospitals. Many members of the clergy have actively contributed to scientific research. Some historians of science, such as Pierre Duhem, attribute the origins of modern science to medieval Catholic scholars like John Buridan, Nicole Oresme, and Roger Bacon. However, the relationship has not been without conflict. Critics, including proponents of the conflict thesis, point to historical and contemporary tensions between the Church and science, such as the trial of Galileo, as examples of where the Church has opposed scientific findings that challenged its teachings. The Catholic Church, for its part, maintains that science and faith are complementary, as expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which addresses this relationship.
The orders, decorations, and medals of the Holy See include titles, chivalric orders, distinctions and medals honoured by the Holy See, with the Pope as the fount of honour, for deeds and merits of their recipients to the benefit of the Holy See, the Catholic Church, or their respective communities, societies, nations and the world at large.
Signed Oct. 22 and released Oct. 28, the pope's new norm goes into effect immediately.