The Historical Archives

Service description

You can consult:

• the textual documents archive
• the photographic archive
• the multimedia archive

Who can use it?

Any person interested in the documents contained in the Historical Archives may consult them free of charge.

How and where

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

The reading room is located in via di San Vitale 19, 00184 Rome.

Remote consultation through the virtual study, l'Aura, is limited to the textual documents archive for the portion of documents that have been digitized.

Access to the service is by appointment only. To book an appointment:

• call one of the following telephone numbers (+39 06 4792.2720 - 3508 - 3512 - 5190, +393955777712, +393536459681, +393355614600, +393351755648, +393666693901)
• submit the booking form (it can be downloaded on this page) by e-mail together with a valid ID document to archiviostorico@bancaditalia.it.

Confirmation of the booking will be sent via email.

For papers conserved in the historical archival sections of the branches, you must contact the branch in person.

The opening hours of these sections may vary.

Consultation

The Historical Archives' main research tool is the database of textual records, enabling you 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 De' Stefani Papers, the Stringher Papers, the List of banks supervised from 1926 to 1960, the Guide to the Paolo Baffi Papers, the Index of correspondents, and the Inventory of the Banco di Santo Spirito Fond.

Partial lists are available for the audiovisual materials and photogaphs.

As a rule, the original documents are not provided but rather digital copies of same. Any documents that have not been digitized are usually made available to you on the day after you request them.

Photocopies

The Historical Archives provides a photocopy service in exclusively digital format for the textual documents and photographs. For textual documents, up to a maximum of 2,000 copies per year are provided free of charge; photographs cost €20 per copy.

Requests for copies may also be made online, so long as you indicate the precise archival location of the documents or provide information permitting their swift identification. General requests involving the selection of material on the part of archivists are not accepted.

You may photograph the textual documents that have not been digitized using your own photographic devices.