Naples State Archives

L’State Archive of Naples was established as the “General Archive of the Kingdom” with the royal decree of December 22, 1808, with the purpose of bringing together in a single location the ancient archives of the institutions existing until the arrival of Joseph Bonaparte in Naples in 1806.

Thus were concentrated the archives of the Royal Chamber of the Sommaria, which included the volumes of the “onciari” cadasters relating to all the municipalities of the kingdom, of the Chancellery, of the State Secretariats of the viceroyal period, of the supreme state advisory bodies (Collateral Council, Royal Chamber of St. Clare), of the Major Chaplain and the highest judicial bodies of the state (Sacred Royal Council, Great Court of Vicaria) and the documents of many other state organs.

After the Bourbon restoration of 1815, the name changed to “Grand Archive of the Kingdom” and the principle was established that not only the documents of the ceased administrations but also those of the current administrations had to be periodically deposited there. From 1860 onwards, the archive saw a significant increase in its documentary heritage, thanks to the acquisition of the acts of the Bourbon ministries and other central bodies, such as the State Council and the Great Court of Auditors.

The first director after the Unification was the economist and journalist Francesco Trinchera, who oversaw, relying on a previous valuable work by archivist Michele Baffi, the publication of the Report on the Neapolitan archives (1872), the first and in many respects still valuable systematic guide to the sources of the State Archive of Naples. He was succeeded by authoritative scholars such as Camillo Minieri Riccio (1874-1882) and especially Bartolomeo Capasso (1882-1900) and Eugenio Casanova (1907-1915), the latter author of a famous archival manual and a comprehensive report on the State Archive of Naples for the decade 1899-1909, published in 1910.

The direction of Riccardo Filangieri di Candida (1934-1956), during which the acquisition of private archives began, unfortunately coincided with the darkest period in the history of our country and its archives; among the war events, the State Archive of Naples suffered more heavily than any other archival institution, as a very large volume of ancient and valuable writings, brought to a depot near Nola to protect them from bombings, were destroyed by a retreating German unit in September 1943.

During the Twentieth Century, having lost its character as the capital’s archive, the Archive received deposits from provincial or local bodies, such as the Prefecture and the Police Headquarters and the District Office of direct taxes with acts related to the so-called Provisional Cadaster of Naples, which, established by Murat in 1809, remained in force until 1914. The first floor of the Monastery of Saints Severino and Sossio, home of the State Archive of Naples, constitutes the museum area of the State Archive of Naples.

The heart of the Institute’s life – indeed housing the Main Study Room, the Inventory Room and the Reception Room – was also for the monks the center of the community. Its four splendid cloisters marked its rhythms; the Chapter Hall, frescoed by Belisario Corenzio in the early 1600s with a complex Christological cycle, was the place for debate and discussion; the large Refectory, evocative and imposing, was the heart of the monastic community’s daily life.

Here various eras and functions coexist: the monastery, the nineteenth-century archive, and the modern cultural institute. Today, the visit to the State Archive of Naples is limited to the first floor rooms. The virtual tour, on the other hand, opens the doors to the “Secret Archive“: areas normally inaccessible because occupied by offices or document deposits which, despite their intended use, hide artistic and archival beauties of no lesser importance.

The third floor offers views of Roman relics, nineteenth-century precision instruments, and the oldest “piece” of the Archive, the Stone Charter, in that characteristic coexistence of documents and monuments that peculiarly characterizes the monastic complex of Saints Severino and Sossio. On the fourth floor of the Institute, in particular, monumental rooms for document preservation were located: some of these were built in the first half of the nineteenth century. The rooms, not included in the usual tour routes of the Institute, are presented both for the importance of the documentary heritage they house and for the interesting and varied solutions for archival shelving installations.