The Multimedia Archive

The Multimedia Historical Archive contains the films, videos and sound recordings made by the Bank itself in the course of its activities or received from other institutions.

The structure of this collection was only recently finalized, following substantial consignments of material to the Historical Archives from the various units of the Bank.

The collection of audiovisual materials first began to form in the 1970s, when it was decided to film the annual Shareholders' Meetings. Those videos now constitute one of the largest and most important series in the Archive, comprising the "Concluding Remarks" read by the governors of the Bank, starting with Guido Carli.

Dating from the same period, there are audiovisual materials relating to occasional initiatives taken by the Bank to film particularly significant construction projects such as, for example, the building, designed by the architect Pier Luigi Nervi, to house the new banknote printing workshops on the Via Tuscolana in Rome.

More recently, the collections have documented regular institutional events, such as the biannual Paolo Baffi Lecture and the annual ceremonies for employees reaching thirty years of service, as well as conferences, study days and workshops, and occasional celebrations (such as the Centennial of the Bank of Italy in 1993 and the study days dedicated to Donato Menichella in 1986).

The Bank also produces a series of audiovisual materials as part of the Oral History project, which began in 1996. It was designed to bring together and make available to scholars sources of oral history, conceived as a new kind of tool for historical analysis, with particular reference to the areas that fall within the remit of the Bank's institutional duties. The project consists essentially in interviews with leading figures in the monetary, financial and banking field; over the years a number of senior officers of the Bank have been interviewed.

The Archives also contain a body of material from foreign central banks, produced between the end of the Second World War and the 1960s, documenting their institutional activities and financial education initiatives.

A project has recently begun to digitize and computerize the Multimedia Archive, which will allow users to consult the multimedia resources, in the same way as the rest of the collections, at the reading room of the Bank's Historical Archives.