Archives
State Archives of Turin
The building of the State Archives (former Court Archives) is located in the area between the Royal Gardens and the Royal Theatre in an architectural continuity with the Royal Palace through the Alfierian building of the State Secretariat. The building, designed by Filippo Juvarra, made between 1731 and 1734, is one of the first examples in the western world, of architecture created specifically for archives. Built on three floors, the building has five large rooms on each floor for the storage of documents.
On behalf of King Carlo Emanuele III, in 1731 Philip Juvarra set up a project for the building of the Archives of the Court with a facade decorated to the courtyard of the Academy and with a simple facade with no ornament to the Royal Garden. The establishment opened its service in late 1734.
In 1905, for the reconstruction of the Royal Theatre one of the two staircases and some small rooms were sacrificed.
Later the building was totally renovated and today it houses the State Archive on its entire surface. In 1925 the acquisition of a second site (the former neo-classical hospital of St. Louis), allows the State Archives to continue to carry out its institutional functions of reception, storage and communication of documents. In the eighteenth-century building there are stored the archives of the Court (which contains the papers of the Savoy dynasty, the acts of the Secretaries of State for Foreign and Interior), the archives of ecclesiastical institutions and the old families. Instead, the Palace of St. Louis maintains a record of the Board of Auditors, the financial apparatus, military, judicial of the pre-unification State and of the peripheral administration of the Italian State from 1861. Significant notary funds and registry lands complete the documentary panorama. In these last two sites there are the precious cartographic archives and rich bibliographical funds (XVI-XX century).
Director: dott. Marco Carassi
Piazza Castello, 209
10124 TORINO
Tel. +39 011 540382
Fax +39 011 546176
www.archiviodistatotorino.beniculturali.it
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State Archives of Alexandria
Established as a Section of the State Archives with the Ministerial Decree on 5th December 1940, in implementation of the law on 22nd December 1939, no. 2006 became the State Archives following the Presidential Decree on 30th September 1963, no. 1409. The territory of the province is historically constituted of the Alexandrian itself and of the Monferrato, in addition to some areas that once belonged to the Republic of Genoa. Part of the notarial documents preserved in the ancient archives of Monferrato, today it belongs to the neighboring provinces of Asti, Cuneo, Savona, Turin and Vercelli. Archives of ancient local courts, of suppressed religious corporations and of the Marquis, then the Duchy of Monferrato, are kept at the State Archives of Turin, and other documentation of the Marquis are located at the State Archives of Mantua. Documentation of the courts, mainly of the Monferrato location, are kept at the State Archives of Asti.
Director: dott. Giovanni Maria Panizza
Via G. Solero, 43
15100 ALESSANDRIA
Tel. +39 0131 252794
Fax +39 0131 236048
www.archivi.beniculturali.it/ASAL
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State Archives of Asti
The State Archive of Asti was created with the Ministerial Decree on 15th April 1959, and the seat was completed in 1964.
Since then, apart from some public and private archives, it has collected what remained of the records of the government offices that are located in the current provincial constituency. The archival situation of the province is particularly complex because of the continuous changes suffered from its territory under the administration of first the Savoy and then the Italian. Only in 1935 the province of Asti was formed with the territories of neighboring districts, especially those of Alessandria and Cuneo. The current territory includes areas that over time became part of various constituencies (beyond those already mentioned, Acqui, and above all Casale). The pre-unification documentation is therefore shown fragmented, and it is, for a substantial part, kept at the State Archives of Turin, and to a lesser extent at the State Archives of Alexandria.
Director: dott. Renzo Remotti
Via Galimberti, 24
14100 ASTI
Tel. +39 0141 531229
Fax: +39 0141 599298
www.archiviodistatoasti.beniculturali.it
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State Archive of Biella
The section of the State Archive of Biella, established on 29th April 1967, has its headquarters in the Dal Pozzo della Cisterna Palace. The building was built in the XV century and in the second half of the XVI century it was added to the current monumental facade facing the square tank.
Since 1969 the section began to gain documentary material. Unfortunately, it is to deplore the destruction of some important documentary collections, such as the sub-prefecture of the post-unification, which included stewardship maps of the Napoleonic sub-prefecture and of various religious corporations. There are also some gaps in the legal funds and, in particular, in those of judicature and local courts. Ancient and important documentations of Biella are kept at the State Archives of Turin.
Director: dott.ssa Graziana Bolengo
Via Arnulfo, 15/a
13900 BIELLA
Tel. +39 015 21805
Fax +39 015 2438378
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State Archives of Cuneo
The State Archives of Cuneo, established as a Section with the Ministerial Decree on 30th September 1956, and running since 1957, contains mainly records of administrative, legal and notary funds. It doesn’t guard the documents of the largest municipalities of the province, but mostly deposited at the local public libraries; nor have the acts of the most ancient organisms (Marquis, committees, abbeys, monasteries, etc..) operating in the vast territory corresponding to the present province of Cuneo, mainly converged acts of various events, in the State Archives of Turin.
Director: dott. Edoardo Garis
Via Monte Zovetto, 28
12100 CUNEO
Tel. +39 017 166645
Fax +39 017 1695436
www.archivi.beniculturali.it/ASCN
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State Archives of Novara
The State Archives of Novara ware established with the Ministerial Decree on 18th March 1970 and opened to the public two years later. It is located in a former Augustinian monastery, known as S. Mary Magdalene, which was the seat, since 1810, of the notarial archives. Between the late eighteenth and early last century, the Novara archives had an era of great changes: on one side because of the Diaspora of the suppressed religious corporations archives, of whom very little is preserved now, on the other ordinances to be implemented some archival of great value. The canonicals Carlo Francesco Frasconi and Carlo Michele Giulino, followers the first using the method of sorting by subjects and the second by timeline. They also left some good analytical inventories of some funds (county of Novara) of charity hospitals and of S. Giuliano, archives of noble families (Brusati, Tornielli), of religious corporations (collegiate church of S. Giulio d'Orta).
In the years 1874-1890 the archaeological society for the museum of Novara’s country collected scrolls and other manuscripts, which come together at the beginning of the twentieth century at the civic museum, founded by Giovan Battista Morandi. Later on, the collections of the museum with the local archives and some state funds were concentrated in the public library.
At the State Archives of Novara are stored the funds related mainly to the Middle and Lower Novara, but also to the Verbano and Ossolano, to the Valsesia (today Vercelli’s) and to the Vigevanasco and Lomellina (today Pavia’s). In 1976 the section of the State Archives of Verbania, preserving funds for the High Novarese, started.
Director: dott.ssa Maria Marcella Vascallas
Via dell'Archivio, 2
28100 NOVARA
Tel. +39 032 1398229
Fax +39 032 135825
www.archivi.beniculturali.it/ASNO
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State Archives of Verbania
The library, despite the slow but steady enrichment of small donations that are primarily from the local public is about 8,500 titles rich including monographs and pamphlets.
The Archive was created as a section, established by Ministerial Decree on 27th March 1972 and opened in 1976, of the State Archives of Novara. It is addressed mainly to the territory of the High Novarese, also including the provinces of Ossola and Pallanza, even with the addition of Aronese, referred to a significant documentary heritage that remained in the State of Novara.
The Stock is characterized by three primary sectors:
1) Notarial acts
2) Judicial acts of High Novarese
3) Historical archives of the municipalities from which the Verbania fusion originated in 1939
4) Historical archives of other municipalities in the province
Meritorious, in that sense, was the work of collection of municipal documents, and the resulting reorganization, filing and protection, which allowed to preserve a heritage that in some cases was certainly destined to dispersion or neglection. Verbania is therefore a State Archive efficiently managed and to carefully reply to an almost daily need of the historical record of the territory to which it serves.
Director: dott.ssa Valeria Mora
Via Cadorna, 27
28992 VERBANIA
Tel. +39 0323 501403
Fax +39 0323 507627
www.archivi.beniculturali.it/ASVB
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State Archives of Vercelli
The establishment of a State Archives in Vercelli, in fulfillment of Presidential Decree on 30th September 1963, no. 1409, came with Ministerial Decree by 20th October 1965. The institute is housed in the monastery of St. Maria delle Grazie (or of the Visitation), founded around 1461.
Here is only preserved the documentation of Vercelli. The documentation of Biella is kept in the section of the State Archive of Biella; the one of Valsesia is at the section of the State Archives of Varallo.
As for the documentation of the State offices, in the State Archieve of Vercelli are kept the offices with seat in the present province, which were established by the Royal Decree-Law on 2nd January 1927, no. 1, with the territories of the three districts of Vercelli, Biella and Varallo that, since 1859, were part of the province of Novara.
From 1969 to today - since when the collection of documentary material started - it was possible to preserve a large volume of documents, despite the destruction of some valuable files, such as, for example, that of the subprefecture, which occurred just after the World War, do not deplete the record of Vercelli and of other places of the present province: more documents can be found in the funds held at the State Archives of Turin, where, among other things, there are many papers of religious institutions and families of Vercelli.
Director ad interim: dott.ssa Graziana Bolengo
Via A. Manzoni, 11
13100 VERCELLI
Tel. +39 0161 259595
Fax +39 0161 220836
www.asvercelli.beniculturali.it
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State Archives of Varallo
This section, established by Ministerial Decree on 27th December 1973, housed in Racchetti Palace began to work regularly since September 1978, maintains a record of the Valsesia.
Valsesia, which belonged to the state of Milan, passed to the Savoy during the War of Spanish Succession - following the victory in Turin in 1707 - maintaining status and privileges until 1770. During the French era, having been brought the border between France and the Italian Kingdom to the Sesia River, some towns in the valley went to France. With the restoration the territories of Valsesia were reunited, which became a province in 1819, then abolished in 1836 and restored in 1844. In 1859 it became part of the province of Novara, in 1927, finally, to Vercelli.
The documentation of municipal historical archives and charities are substantial. Instead, the records of the post-unification Courts are rather incomplete and fragmentary. The documentation of the ancient religious corporations have been lost.
The protocols per-minute and notaries are held at the State Archives of Novara.
Via Tancredi Rossi 9 - 13019 Varallo
Telefono: +39 016 35 1234 - Fax: +39 016 3560380
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www.archivi.beniculturali.it/SASVARAL
