The Great Archive of the Camera della Sommaria: reorganizations and reclassifications from the 17th to the 20th century

Publisher: FedOA - Federico II University Press 

Series: Regna. Texts and Studies on Institutions, Culture and Memory in Medieval Southern Italy

Pages: 275

Language: Italian

Abstract: This volume examines the reorganizations and reclassifications that concerned the so-called Archivum Magnum of the Regia Camera della Sommaria between the 17^th and 20^th centuries. Not to be confused with the Grande Archivio del Regno (i.e., the current Archivio di Stato of Naples), the Archivum Magnum was the most important of the Sommaria’s archives. Gianluca Falcucci describes the efforts to recover, both directly and indirectly, the Sommaria’s records following the pillaging of the Archive on September 23, 1701, when, in the context of the Macchia Conspiracy, the Neapolitan people assaulted Castel Capuano—the Archive’s location—throwing thousands of documents out the windows and setting them to fire. For nearly two decades, the two archivists Antonio and Gregorio De Masi—father and son—devoted themselves to this recovery effort; their careers and activities are reconstructed here for the first time. Gianluca Bocchetti and Davide Passerini investigate the origins of the Diversi and Dipendenze series of the Sommaria, among the most important for the richness and variety of late medieval and modern documents, highlighting how the two series are essentially the result of reclassification efforts begun in the 19^th century, following the transfer of the documents from Castel Capuano to the monastery of SS. Severino e Sossio. This volume publishes valuable reference tools for historical and archival research: descriptions of De Masi inventories and of the main documentary nuclei of the Diversi of the Sommaria (feudal archives, documents relating to important offices and to the Sommaria), as well as the analytical index of the Diversi (794 archival units from the 15th century to 1839).