Ordering the archive in early modern Venice (1400–1650)

Abstract

The Republic of Venice was renowned for gathering and preserving from very early on a huge and growing archive. This article analyses the ways in which records were created, stored, and ordered for both immediate and future use. The political system of Venice, at once aristocratic and republican, had an important impact on the production and preservation of large quantities of documents in unbound filze and bound registri. In turn, the volume of this paperwork required the development of strict criteria for the organization of the material. In particular, this article analyses how records were divided at the moment of production, thus enabling a pragmatic combination of chronological and thematic ordering criteria. The latter were reinforced by finding tools arranged by subject matter, in particular indexes inside each volume and more general indexes across several volumes, both known as rubriche. The article suggests that indexing must be seen as a historical process dependent on Venice's political structures and tied to specific moments in the wider history of the Republic, respectively in the fifteenth, early sixteenth, and early seventeenth centuries. Finally, the article points to some unexpected interactions between political secrecy and indexing.

« Breviora reddet ordo, et mens, et ratio»

“…Daí que seja necessário que, ao recorrer a esses índices, catálogos e inventários, os historiadores e arquivistas tenham presente que, como afirma Randolph Head citando Rück, "the inventoried archive was never identical with the actually present archive" 5 . Em adição, mais do que descrever esse arquivo real, os índices, catálogos ou inventários construíam um arquivo que, no fundo, não existia antes: "e «constroem-no» seja de uma forma simples -porque são parciais, genéricos, ou inacabados -seja de modos mais complexos: tendo subjacentes organizações documentais inspiradas por teorizações e 3 DE VIVO, 2010. 4 GUYOTJEANNIN, 2010: 40.…”

The origins of organizing in the sixteenth century

“…This system was the Cancelleria Secreta (Secret Chancery), Venice's secret archive. The Secret Chancery was established in 1402 with the purpose of becoming the repository for the secret (what nowadays would be termed 'classified') documents pertaining to the Venetian Republic's domestic and foreign security (De Vivo, 2010;. By the 1460's the Secreta was entirely controlled by the Council of Ten and it became the mainstay of their intelligence organisation (Trebbi, 1980, pp.…”

“…These were primarily conciliar records and letters from foreign diplomats. Having gone through formal training and rigorous examinations, the secretaries were expected to transcribe the archival records into leather-bound parchment registers, complete with indexes, in order to bolster their endurance and their preservation for posterity (De Vivo, 2010; attempted to delegate work to unauthorised staff was liable to legal sanctions (De Vivo, 2013, p. 480).…”

Big Data of the Past

“…From a technological perspective, the Renaissance and early modern period were intrinsically linked with the invention of several intellectual technologies for search and retrieval: indexes, bibliographies, accounting tables, and hierarchical collection structuring methods (de Vivo, 2010;Robert, 2010) in addition to chronologies and maps (Rosenberg and Grafton, 2012). From an open-ended perspective, the acceleration of exchanges, the rise of the printing press industry, and the early attempts to conduct experimental science contributed to producing streams of new data.…”

“…Likewise, a particular landmark, such as a church's campanile, could serve as a fixed point to align maps of different centuries, and several common landmarks could constitute the basis of a mapping function to realign data from the past. In other cases, structural mapping can be envisioned, for instance, for aligning early modern documentary structure with contemporary information systems (de Vivo, 2010).…”