- The Vatican Apostolic Archives, although formalised as a separate institutional and corporate entity during the Renaissance period in the 17th Century, has its beginnings going back to a more distant past, even to the apostolic times. One could say that the archives date back to the beginning of the Church itself, when Christians preserved records of their works of evangelisation. As early as the 1st Century AD, the popes already kept their scrinium (a chestbox or archive) and stored documents such as the gesta martyrum (deeds of the martyrs), a collection of Latin stories about the lives of the martyrs. Also, in the papal scrinium were accounts of episcopal consecrations and donations made to Bishops in the early centuries of Christianity. This was more like the chancery of the Popes. (Cf. Padraig Murphy, The Vatican Secret Archive: A History, 240). But much of the records accumulated from the first century were lost as a result of the Diocletian persecution in 303, which ordered the destruction of Church writings. However, by 313 AD, with the Edict of Milan, the Church gained relative peace and freedom. It was then possible to set up the archives of the Roman Church in the Domus Faustae at the Basilica of St. John Lateran. (Cf. Martino Giusti, “The Vatican Archives”, Archivara, 7: 1978, 17). The Lateran Palace was a donation by Emperor Constantine I to the Church during the papacy of Pope Miltiades, in honour of his victory at the Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312. By the latter half of the 4th century, as during the time of Damasus I (366-384), archival culture further developed in apostolic times with the writing of the lives of the popes and their deeds, which were recorded annually in the Liber Pontificalis (Book of the Popes). While this was a text, it was a further fruit of the efforts to preserve records and keep archives. Despite these efforts, there was no clear distinction between archives and libraries for a long time.
- Although the papal archive and library were located at the Lateran for a long time, another safe place where early archives were kept was the Basilica of St. Peter, where the confessions of faith of Bishops were stored. However, the main documents and records of the Church were kept in the Lateran Palace. Regardless of this, the turbulence that marked the early centuries of the Church led the Pope to take their archives with them wherever they went. This accounts for the loss of some of the records during periods of transition and movement. Additionally, the sack of Rome and popular risings and struggles that affected the city further led to the loss of some documents. Another reason some documents were lost in transit was the fragility of the papyrus. From this lesson in history, archival materials ought to be preserved in formats that can withstand the test of time. However, some valuable records were preserved, while others were retrieved over time from other locations. The fact that the archives were taken with them showed the critical importance of archives to Church administration even from Apostolic times.
- Another critical phase in the development of the archives after the period of the Holy Scrinium, from the first century, was the time from the 12th century, when Popes began to reside in the papal residence in the Vatican, known as the Apostolic Palace. Although the construction of the Papal residence began in the 5th century, with Pope Symmachus, popes did not typically reside in the Papal Palace near St. Peter’s Basilica; instead, they resided in the Lateran Palace. The construction of the Apostolic Palace near St. Peter was further fortified by Pope Eugene III (1145-1153) and further modified by Pope Innocent III (1198-1216). It was Pope Nicholas III (1277-1288) who first resided in the Vatican Palace, and the administration of the Church was run from there. The archives gradually moved from the Lateran Palace to the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. However, with the crisis of the Church in the 14th century, when the papacy moved from Rome to Avignon, France, from 1309 to 1377, in what is typically known as the “Babylonian captivity of the Papacy”, the papal curia and archives also moved to Avignon, France. Pope Gregory XI returned the Papacy to Rome in 1377, but he died shortly afterwards. The implication is also a gradual move of the curia and archives back to Rome. The papal election of 1378, which resulted in the election of Urban VI as pope, was contested and led to the papal schism, also known as the Western Schism, with the subsequent election of antipopes. This period lasted between 1378 and 1417, during which each pope and antipope maintained their own archives. This schism was resolved at the Council of Constance with the election of Martin V (1417-1431). During this period, several documents were lost, and different people tried to claim authority over the archives during these years, and many records were deliberately destroyed during these years.
- The last phase of the Vatican archives came in the 17th century when Pope Paul V instructed the records of the Church to be assembled in one place. At this point, the Vatican archives became a formal institution and were subsequently separated from the Vatican Library. However, in the late 18th and early 19th century during the Napoleonic Wars which led eventually to the conquest of the Papal States and imprisonment of Pope Pius VII by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1809, many important documents were seized from the Vatican archives as a way to give legitimacy to his conquest and assert control over the region. He demanded that the pope submit pictures and manuscripts to the French Republic. Napoleon’s interest in the archives was strategic as he sought to centralise control over European religious and political entities. However, after the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 and the restoration of the papacy in 1814, some of these seized treasures were returned to the Vatican archives.
- Since the time of Innocent III, when the archives gradually moved from the Lateran Palace to the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, a series of registers of letters of popes have been preserved in the Vatican archives under the name Registra Vaticana, together with many acts and diplomas dating back to earlier times. The Vatican archives today house documents that have been preserved in other locations for safety during periods of crisis, especially in Castel’Angelo in the 16th century, during the sack of Rome, parallel archives kept during the western schism, those also taken to France during the Avignon papacy, and others kept in other places. The Vatican archives are also enriched with a large collection from religious houses and congregations that have been suppressed, especially those suppressed by Pope Clement IX in 1668. It has also received documents from many parts of the ecclesiastical world, including the Lateran Registers, the Registers of Lateran Briefs and Petitions and the Borghese collections. Today, the Vatican archives contain the registers of popes, as well as official letters containing authentic copies of the originals, including bulls and briefs. The documentary heritage of the Vatican archives spans over 12 centuries. It consists of over 600 archival fonds and is stored on over 85 linear kilometres of shelving, some of which is in a bunker, a two-story underground vault below the Cortile della Pigna of the Vatican Museums (Cf. Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, https://www.archivioapostolicovaticano.va/content/aav/en/l-archivio.html). Some of the notable documents held in the Vatican archives include King Henry VIII of England’s request for a marriage annulment, a handwritten transcript of Galileo Galilei’s trial, the excommunication bull issued against Martin Luther, and many other photographic documents.
