The official site of Italy's central bank

The Bank of Italy's Historical Archives are a highly organized collection of papers reflecting the many functions that, over time, the Bank has performed, enhanced or ceased to carry out. These activities have been widely documented both in the papers of the Head Office and in those produced and stored by the Bank's branches.

The textual records are presented according to the ISAD (G) international standard and are currently arranged in 20 fonds. It is worth noting a particularly important fonds regarding the Bank of Italy which is divided into 209 sub-fonds.

Each sub-fonds contains a set of documents produced by a department or unit of the Bank in the exercise of its functions (Supervision, Research, Personnel, Property, etc.), by a branch of the Bank (one sub-fonds for each branch regardless of size) or by a member of the Bank of Italy's Directorate.

The Bank of Italy fonds also contains papers relating to the governing bodies of the Bank and those of the Banca di Genova and the Banca di Torino, predecessors of the Bank. Among other fonds held, some important ones are:

• the fonds of some former institutions or organizations linked to or promoted by the Bank of Italy (Consorzio per sovvenzioni su valori industriali, Ispettorato per la difesa del risparmio e l'esercizio del credito, Credito Fondiario, Cassa per la circolazione monetaria della Somalia, Magazzini Generali di Tripoli)
• papers donated to the Archives or transferred there concerning some important people from inside and outside the Bank (Paolo Baffi, Alberto Beneduce, Federico Caffè, Antonio D'Aroma, Alberto De' Stefani, Guido Jung, Donato Menichella, Giovanni Orgera, Guido Rey, Guido Ruta, Bonaldo Stringher)
• various collections, among which the internal regulations of the Bank, Head Office departmental reports, the statutes and balance sheets of various Italian and foreign banks or of financial and commercial companies which are kept for statistical and research purposes, and the annual reports of some of the Bank of Italy's predecessors, the Bank itself and the Credito Fondiario
• papers relating to the Banca Nazionale Toscana.

Documents from institutes external to the Bank and personal papers are held in fonds which are now closed to any further additions.

The Bank of Italy fonds also has some closed sub-fonds relating to functions or structures that are now inactive. On the other hand, many sub-fonds are open to new additions which are periodically transferred by areas that are still active (Bank of Italy senior management structures, various head office departments, and branches working in other parts of Italy).

The textual records archives of the Bank of Italy, with the exception of fonds of personal papers, have gradually come to be organized on the basis of a traditional subdivision according to type: "Files" which are binders of correspondence sent and received by the Bank, "Letterbooks" which are a collection of copies of correspondence starting right from the beginning of the Bank's activities up to 1954 and, lastly, "Registers" of various kinds.

All other kinds of paper records (plans, forms, printed volumes) are categorized as "Other".

• Genealogy (Text only in Italian) pdf 31 kB

• Selected examples from the textual records
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