The Historical Archives

Users of the Archives can consult:

• the textual records archive
• the photographic archive
• the multimedia archive

Any person interested in consulting the documents held at the Historical Archives may do so free of charge.

The Historical Archives of the Bank of Italy are open for in-person and remote consultation Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 13:00 and from 14:10 to 16:20. The archives remain closed on national holidays, as well as on 29 June, 14 August, and 24 and 31 December.

The reading room is located in via Milano 53, 00184 Rome, and has two computer workstations for users.

Our virtual study room, l'Aura, enables users to access and consult digitized textual records remotely. A significant portion of the archives has already been digitized and the process continues as part of a comprehensive automation project.

Users must make an appointment to access both the reading room and the virtual study rooms. To book an appointment:

• call one of the following telephone numbers: +39 06 4792.2720 (and extensions .3508, .3512), +393955777712, +393536459681, +393355614600, +393666693901, +393336642893 , +393336643711
• submit the booking form (available at the link on this page) by e-mail together with a scanned ID document to archiviostorico@bancaditalia.it.

Users must comply with the Regulation for the Study Room at the Bank of Italy's Historical Archives (available at the link on this page). Please wait for your booking to be processed and confirmed.

Users will receive a confirmation email with instructions on accessing the study rooms. Please let us know in good time if you need to cancel or change a booking to prevent unnecessary moving of items you requested from off-site storage.

For papers held at the historical archival sections of individual branches, you will have to contact the branch itself.

Branch opening hours may vary.

Consultation

The Historical Archives' main search tool is the database of textual records, enabling users to visualize the descriptions and images of the digitized documents. It currently contains around 325,000 inventory records and some 25 million images.

The other research tools of note include the Guide to the Historical Archives, the Historical Archives Working Papers, the printed inventories of the Alberto De' Stefani Papers and of the Bonaldo Stringher Papers, the List of supervised banks from 1926 to 1960, the Guide to the Paolo Baffi Papers, the Index of Paolo Baffi’s correspondents, and the Inventory of the Banco di Santo Spirito Fonds.

Partial lists are available for the audiovisual materials and photographs.

As a rule, the original documents are not provided for consultation but can be accessed as digital copies. Any documents that have not been previously digitized are usually made available on the day after a request to consult them is made.

Photocopies

Users of the Historical Archives can obtain digital reproductions of textual documents and photographs free of charge. For further details, please refer to our regulations (Regulation for the Study Room at the Bank of Italy’s Historical Archives).