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Vatican secret archives

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The Vatican Secret Archives (Archivio Segreto Vaticano), located in Vatican City, contain the central repository of all the acts that have been promulgated by the Roman Catholic Church's Papal See, as well as diplomatic materials and correspondence of the Papal See and other documents that have accumulated over the centuries. They include some of the seminal historical documents for understanding the real history of the Western world. The Secret Archives were removed from the Vatican Library in the 17th century under the orders of Pope Paul V and remained absolutely closed to Vatican outsiders until the late 19th century, fueling rumors of what might be secreted away there.

The entire contents of the pre-8th century archives, with undoubtedly the world's best collection of heretical texts, have disappeared, according to the Vatican's official account of the library's history, "for reasons not entirely known." The documentation is a little scanty before the 13th century. Since that time, the documentation includes items such as Henry VIII of England's request for a marriage annulment, and letters from Michelangelo.

Behind its entrance through the Porta di S. Anna in via di Porta Angelica (rione of Borgo), this is the nearest thing the real world offers to the library in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. There is no browsing, and selected scholars must ask in advance for the precise document they wish to see; thus, they must know in advance that such a document exists. The catalogue is not complete.

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Opening of the archives

The Secret Archives are still separately housed. The first papal historian to make fundamental use of the Secret Archives was the sympathetic historian of the Papacy, Ludwig von Pastor. Pope Leo XIII opened the archives up in 1815 to non-clerical scholars in the early 1880s, but no further documents were released until 1924, when the Secret Archives became open up to the end of the pontificate of Gregory XVI on June 1, 1846. Since then, the secret archives of subsequent pontificates have been opened as follows:

On February 20, 2002, Pope John Paul II took the extraordinary step of making available, beginning in 2003, documents from the Historical Archives of the Secretariat of State (Second Section), which pertain to the Vatican's relations with Germany from 1922–1939. The Vatican's reason for this action was "to put an end to unjust and thoughtless speculation."

The complete archives for the pontificate of Pius XI from 1922 until March 1939 are scheduled to become available sometime during 2006.

Other secret archives

There are other secret archives at the Vatican. An even more secret archive is kept by the Apostolic Penitentiary and contains papal documents and other material that is not made public, as no one is allowed access due to the privacy of the confessor-penitent disputes the Penitentiary is responsible for. Nevertheless the Secret Archives are the main collection. The Vatican Secret Archives have been estimated to contain 30 miles of shelving (quite expansive), and there are 35,000 thick volumes in the selective catalogue alone: "Publication of the indexes, in part or as a whole, is forbidden," according to the regulations current in 2005. The Secret Archives support their own photographic and conservation studios.

Further reading

See also

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