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The General Directorate of Archives: a hope and a challenge
 It was with a sense of great pleasure and involvement that I accepted the invitation to open the first issue of Il Mondo degli Archivi in its new format and present it to the public. This affords me the opportunity not only to present an excellent contribution to the culture of our sector but also to reflect on the short but unquestionably significant period since my appointment as head of General Directorate of Archives in August 2004, recalling the salient stages and outlining the policies I intend to pursue in the near future. It will thus be necessary to provide some background information enabling readers, and especially the uninitiated, to understand the structural coordinates within which the Directorate is operating in this particular period of transition in not only institutional but also cultural, technological and organizational terms. A new adventure together!
 Dear readers,
The new online version of Il Mondo degli Archivi will be presented at the Rome State Archives on 11 April. The initiative, which we hope will win your support, stems from a new agreement between the ANAI and the General Directorate for Archives. As many of you will know, it is primarily for financial reasons that the decision has been taken to abandon the printed format on paper, at least for the time being. We have, however, also seen this as an opportunity for the renewal of our newsletter, which we hope to transform into a quicker, more up-to-date, and above all more widely circulated means of information over time by harnessing the potential of ICT.A new department for archivists and librarians of the Culture’s Ministry
 The rethinking of the organizational structure of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage responds to the need not only to strengthen the more specifically technical and scientific aspects, which have constituted the peculiar characteristic of this body from the outset, but also to provide a better and more rational management structure fostering the conditions required if a very rich legacy stratified over centuries of cultural sedimentation is to be communicated to increasingly large sections of the population.
In this perspective, the departments and their various general directorates are responsible for ensuring the coordination of activities on national territory and an integrated, homogeneous approach in all sectors. From Facts to Promises: ANAI Initiatives and Cultural Heritage Programmes
 Much consternation has been aroused in the last few months among contemporary historians and archivists by the discovery that, alongside the historical archives of the constitutional organs proper, a piece of summertime legislation (art. 14 duodecies of DL no. 115/2005) has unexpectedly created a separate historical archives for the Presidenza del Consiglio (PdC – Prime Minister’s Office), an improvised measure improperly based on considerations of prestige if not indeed more concrete internal interests. The perception of this as a very serious matter stems not only from its introduction “on the sly” but also and above all from the institutional “wound” inflicted on the national archival system. The PdC is not in fact a constitutional organ distinct from the government as a whole. The latter already possesses its own historical archives in the shape of the Central State Archives, to which its records are transferred and which would obviously find its functions substantially diminished. The procedures of records selection and access would be established by presidential decree with discretionary powers exempted from compliance with the Cultural Heritage Code that open up the possibility (and indeed probability, given the precedents) of non-objective and non-transparent “political” management of the archives.
The Central Institute for Archives: Commencement of activities
The ICAR (Istituto Centrale per gli Archivi) has been required first and foremost in this initial phase of its institutional life to establish a by no means easy balance between the tasks it has been entrusted by parliament and the human and financial resources allocated at present. While awaiting the provision of organic resources making it possible to perform the broad and delicate tasks assigned by law (including “the definition of standards for the cataloguing and the formation of archives, study and research, and the application of new technologies”), the ICAR has therefore endeavoured in its programmes and activities to focus primarily on the SAN and SIAS information systems, regarded at present as the sector most “sensitive” and richest in significant repercussions for the archives administration as a whole. As those who take an interest in archival matters are well aware, the short acronym of the Sistema Archivistico Nazionale actually represents a complex and eagerly awaited effort to create a tool of knowledge, access and sharing for the Italian heritage of state and private archives, enabling each of the already existing information systems to play its part in making up a single overall mosaic. The archives of the Prime Minister’s Office
 Article 14 – duodecies of D.L. 30.6.2005 no. 115, containing urgent measures to ensure the functioning of sectors of state administration, tacked onto law 17.8.2005 no. 168, adds the following section (comma 3 bis) to article 42 of the Cultural Heritage Code: The Prime Minister’s Office [Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri] shall hold its records in its own historical archive in accordance with the decisions taken and the decree issued by the Prime Minister. The same decree establishes the procedures of conservation, consultation and access to records in the historical archives of the Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri. The National Academy of Fencing
 Few people are aware that the qualification of fencing master, a prerequisite for instructors of this sport, is awarded solely by the Accademia Nazionale di Scherma, a non-profit institution based in Naples. There is only one other organization like it in the world, and that is located in Paris, the cradle of skilled swordsmen and setting for most of the world’s best-known swashbuckling tales. The possession of an ancient and highly prestigious fencing academy is therefore a source of pride both for the city of Naples and for Italy as a whole. The “Dematerialization” of Administrative Records
 A white paper on the dematerialization of administrative documentation is soon to be published in the CNIPA Quaderni series summarizing the activities of the interdepartmental working group set up by the Minister for Innovation and Technologies. The paper also examines a series of problems regarding the gradual transition from paper to digital media in the management of records in the public and private sectors, the evolution of legislation governing these subjects, the prospects for development, and possible critical elements.
The process of government reorganization and innovation underway over the last few years is aimed at marked administrative and structural simplification with a particular focus on the provision of services primarily through information and communication technology (ICT) and the great opportunities it offers for communication between government bodies and citizens.Conference on use of International Standard Archival Description in Sardinia
 Within the framework of its training initiatives for members, the Sardinia section of ANAI organized a conference on the use of standards of archival description in Sardinia (“La descrizione archivistica: lo stato dell’arte in Sardegna. Esperienze a confronto”, 16 June 2005). The conference was held at the Società degli operai in Cagliari with the ANAI vice president Ferruccio Ferruzzi as coordinator. After the welcoming addresses by Carla Ferrante, president of the ANAI Sardinia section, and Marinella Ferrai Cocco Ortu, director of the Cagliari State Archives, Dolores Melis of the Cagliari Municipal Archives illustrated the work of description and digitization underway on the repository’s collection of cartographic and photographic material. Paolo Cau, director of the Sassari Municipal Archives, and his co-workers presented their ongoing projects, ranging from the 19th-century Pinzi classification scheme to the new form of archival management involving the use of modern technologies. Antonella Casula of the Oristano Municipal Archives focused above all on efforts to promote their sources by involving schools and organizing exhibitions and guided tours. Audiovisual Archives in Italy: the efforts of the ANAI working group on the description of film and non-film material
 Governmental cultural institutions in Italy have been concerned with audiovisual archives and the conservation of their holdings for just a few years now. Until recently, as is known, the preservation of audiovisual material was essentially a matter for the National Film Library and the Experimental Centre of Cinematography based in Rome, which has been responsible for this field by law since 1949. More or less recent surveys carried out by ministerial institutions such as the Italian archives administration or bodies like the AAMOD Foundation (Archivio audiovisivo del movimento operaio e democratico) have brought to light a far more richly varied and complex situation characterized by a vast network of organizations for the gathering, preservation and production of film material. In addition to such well-known archives as the National Film Library, the Istituto Luce, the film libraries of Bologna and Friuli, the National Museum of Cinema in Turin and the AAMOD, there are indeed hundreds of structures concerned with cinema and film protection. The AMO Project
 Anna Maria Ortese was fully aware of he position as a creator of archival material. She often referred in her notes to the need to put her papers in order, to answer letters from her illustrious correspondents, keep typewritten copies of the same, and to check over her texts, establishing an order among her constantly reread, corrected and rewritten drafts of novels. The Naples State Archives is engaged on the arrangement and cataloguing of this extraordinary fonds, which will be completed in 2006. In the meantime, it is organizing for the spring two days of readings, showings of films, and writing workshops devoted to Ortese in collaboration with two cultural associations, namely Aldebaran Park, which has been producing Antonella Cilento’s Laboratorio di Scrittura Lalineascritta for twelve years now, and Sebezia, which publishes Scrinia, a journal of archival science, paleography, diplomatics and historical studies. Archivists on radio!
 The Trentino-Alto Adige Section of ANAI is engaged on an initiative designed to give greater visibility both to the association and to the heterogeneous world of regional archives. This is a joint venture launched with the cultural section of Radio RAI 2 Regione, the head of which enthusiastically welcomed a project drawn up by Roberta Giovanna Arcaini, an ANAI member and official of the Superintendency for Libraries and Archives of the autonomous province of Trento, where various local archives are located. Radio RAI agreed to present the initiative to its listeners and proposed a cycle of 13 monothematic broadcasts, each one devoted to a different repository located alternately in the provinces of Trento and Bolzano. The programmes are short interviews (of about 15 minutes) that not only outline the history of the archives in question and some of its more interesting and frequently consulted holdings but also give information about access (opening hours, location, etc.) and the research possibilities offered. The ANAI Working Group on Professional Certification
 The professional certification of archivists has long been a matter of great interest for the ANAI, which has set up a special working group in this connection.1 Formally created in October 2001,2 the group addresses the need to identify rules for the certification of professional archivists in Italy. In accordance with the indications of the European Union and the desire to provide a system capable both of ensuring conditions of adequate professional expertise and of avoiding the performance of archival work by persons lacking the requisite skills and hence bringing the profession into discredit and disrepute, the group carried out an initial survey of the situation at the international level.3 Analysis of the systems of professional certification launched outside Italy—and already well-established in countries like France and the USA—provided an interesting cross-section and some initial working stimuli.4 The International Institute of Archival Sciences of Trieste and Maribor
 The International Institute of Archival Sciences originated as an international centre for technical and professional problems in the archival sector founded in Maribor in the 1980s. The conferences organized from the outset on a regular yearly basis also provide an opportunity for meeting and the exchange of views. The conference proceedings are published in the magazine Atlanti by the International Institute of Archival Sciences, the name assumed by the centre in 1991. The Institute became part of Maribor University in 2001. The central position of Trieste in the present-day European Union, the city’s greater prestige, the success obtained in 2000, when the conference was held exceptionally in Trieste, and awareness that a body like the Institute requires the support of an archives rather than a university were all factors prompting the transfer of its headquarters to the Trieste State Archives. Models for Audiovisual Archives: a debate underway for decades within of initiatives launched by the AAMOD Foundation
 The AAMOD Foundation (Archivio audiovisivo del movimento operaio e democratico) has been working for decades to generate institutional awareness with respect to the recognition of audiovisual sources as items of cultural heritage requiring preservation and to models for the handling and management of this material. Set up as an association in the late 1970s and converted into a foundation in 1985, the AAMOD has been active from the very outset in organizing conferences and seminars providing fruitful opportunities for the exchange of views not only between large-scale structures but also between small and medium-sized ones at the central and local levels. It has thus contributed to the creation of an effective network of exchange and collaboration between audiovisual archives in Italy as regards the problems of managing and developing their holdings. I refer in particular to the first conference organized by the AAMOD on these subjects (Modello di archivio audiovisivo, 1981), where the failure to recognize audiovisual material as part of the cultural heritage was addressed for the first time in Italy and, again for the first time, attention was drawn to the need to organize audiovisual archives in Italy with a view to creating an effective system of structures operating in the sector.1
Nature on Paper
 Natura di Carta is the title of an exhibition inaugurated on Saturday, 11 March 2006, at 11 am in the Florence State Archives (open to the public from 13 to 30 March). Organized by students of the Master’s course in Event Creation of Florence University with Prof, Laura Borello as curator, the exhibit features picture cards, labels, postcards, games and illustrated books of the 19th and 20th century.
Florence - Did you know that an open myrtle blossom with a single leaf is the way to say “I love you” in the language of flowers? This is just one of the many curious facts to be discovered by examining the hundreds of images on display. The exhibition features a large and colourful collection of picture cards, labels, postcards, greeting cards, games, menus and illustrated books produced in the 19th and 20th centuries. The star of the show is nature as represented in all its scientific, symbolic and educational aspects so as to recall the ways and customs of popular tradition.The Archives of the Naturalist and Botanist Giuseppe Bianca
An archive consisting of 19 folders of documents and 12 of correspondence covering the 19th and 20th centuries and regarding various members of the Bianca family and persons related to the same was certified as possessing historical interest on 8 October 2003 by the Archival Superintendency for Sicily. In addition to material primarily concerned with the family’s property, the archive also includes the correspondence of the naturalist and botanist Giuseppe Bianca (Avola, 1801-83), known for his scientific study of aspects and problems of flora in the district of Avola (Noto). In accordance with the methods used by naturalists at the time, his published treatise Flora dei dintorni di Avola (Catania 1840) opens with a topographical description of the area so as to highlight the close relationship between botanical study and the habitat.
Activities of the Bologna State Archives in the First Semester of 2006
Fulgores Bononiae – 14th and 15th-century miniatures
Published by Trident S.p.a., which handled the reproduction of 40 miniatures belonging to the collection of illuminated codices of the Bologna State Archives, the work Fulgores Bononiae will be presented at the Archives in the early months of 2006. The 14th and 15th-century miniatures are taken from parchment codices containing the statutes of corporations of arts and crafts, religious confraternities and secular companies, and constitute some of the finest specimens of the Bolognese school of illumination in the Middle Ages.
The work includes illustrative material and an introductory essay by Carla Battistini, an art historian and expert on Bolognese miniatures. (Book Space) The Archival Superintendency for the Campania Region
The Archival Superintendency for Campania plans to undertake various promotional activities in 2006 encompassing a broad variety of archives. Within the framework of a project addressing the archives of contemporary art galleries, launched in 2000 with resources made available by Section III of the General Directorate for Archives, a documentary, photographic and iconographic exhibition will be held in January on a gallery that began life in the 1960s as Il Centro and is still active today as the Galleria Dina Carola. Support has been received in this connection from the Banco di Napoli Foundation for the catalogue now being published by the Naples branch of Electa. (Promotion)
In collaboration with the ANAI Campania Section, a one-day conference will be held in January at the Superintendency on the new technologies made possible by highly specialized equipment provided by the Naples-based Memini Consortium for the protection, promotion and utilization of cultural heritage. The participants will include Gigliola Fioravanti director of the State Archives Centre of Reprography, Binding and Restoration. (Digital) Exhibition by Trieste State Archives
Trieste and Istria: Images of the territory in the sources of the Trieste State Archives Trieste State Archives, 2-28 March 2006
The project undertaken by the Trieste State Archives and the Federation of Associations of Exiles from Istria, Fiume (Rijeka) and Dalmatia involves an exhibition presenting the image of the territory in question between the 18th and 20th centuries as it appears in the holdings of the Trieste State Archives. The picture the exhibition seeks to offer is anything but exhaustive. Its piecemeal approach is in fact deliberately designed to highlight possible pathways of research that visitors can then follow up for the localities or types of archival material of specific personal interest. The localities taken in consideration together with Trieste are Albona, Bogliuno, Buie, Capodistria, Cittanova, Dignano, Momiano, Montona, Muggia, Orsera, Parenzo, Pinguente, Pirano, Pisino, Pola, Rovigno, Salvore, San Vincenti and Umago. |
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