Abstract
In 1881, Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) opened to scholarly research the Vatican Archives, a repository of documents recording papal history from the Middle Ages. Two years later, his letter Saepenumero considerantes, confirmed the opening and his motu proprio of May 1884 gave further instructions.1 The opening was entwined with both the broader world of Italian politics and the smaller political sphere of the archives itself. The macropolitical context was the ecclesiastical controversy about the papacy's role in Italian history, which informed Leo XIII's decision to expand access to the archives. The micropolitical context concerns the management of the archives and the politics of access inside the Vatican. In his memoirs published posthumously in 1947, Protestant scholar Theodor Sickel2 shows how bureaucratic power struggles and disagreements on extending access affected a scholar interested in historical research for its own sake. Despite Leo XIII's appreciation for Sickel's work, some of the pope's sub...
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