Les archives notariales des Etats du Pape : contrôle centrale et évolutions locales de l’enregistrement en italie au début du l’époque moderne

Abstract

This paper contributes to a history of notarial archives in early modern Europe by looking at notarial record-keeping in the Papal States outside of Rome and Bologna. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V created a special administrative regime to control and organize the notarial archives. A new office, the Prefettura degli Archivi, was founded for this purpose. This essay first presents an overview over the history, development, and internal functioning of this largely unknown administrative body. It thus interprets the papacy’s archival politics as part of the larger process of earlymodern state-building. The final sections use the sources created by this office to illustrate, how an alternative and less ’institutionalist’ approach to the history of archives could look like. The plentiful sources produced by the Prefettura allow for a pragmatic or praxeological history that highlights in new ways the place and role of archives in the daily lives of individuals and small communities.