16919 - Modern and Contemporary Archive Administration for Special Purposes

Learning outcomes

With the historiographical discussion on the one hand, the examination of specific situations on the other, at the end of the course the student reaches an advanced understanding of the problems of the discipline and receives adequate training on the technical-operational side

Course contents

The course examines two particular manifestations of archival realities, judicial archives and personal archives, analyzing their forms and characteristics through the study of the documentation they keep. The theoretical part of the course will focus on the use of archival categories as a tool for interpreting documentary corpus and historical-institutional contexts and in the practical part on the analysis of concrete case studies on archives and inventories.


For the judicial archives, the institutions of the modern and contemporary age in the Ravenna area will be examined, the results on the production and conservation of the archives through the ages and the analysis of the judicial document as a source for history.


For personal archives, ways and characteristics of the construction of personal archives will be examined, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, focusing on the cases of political personalities and artists.

Readings/Bibliography

General introduction

Isabella Zanni Rosiello, Gli archivi tra passato e presente, Bologna, il Mulino, 2005, pp. 7-121

Stefano Vitali, Di angeli, di paperi e di conigli, ovvero dello strano mestiere dell'archivista in “Archivi per la storia”, 2001, pp. 179-187

Archivistica. Teorie, metodi, pratiche, a cura di Maria Guercio e Linda Giuva, Roma, Carocci, 2014, in particolare i saggi: Paola Carucci, L’Ordinamento, pp. 137-177; Stefano Vitali, La descrizione archivistica al tempo degli standard e dei sistemi informatici, pp. 179-210.

Judicial archives

Luigi Londei, Le magistrature dello Stato della Chiesa nell'età moderna. Qualche nota di sintesi, in "Le Carte e la Storia, Rivista di storia delle istituzioni" 2/1999, pp. 36-54, doi: 10.1411/10359

Leonardo Mineo, Dario Taraborrelli, «Unicamente per fine nazionale». Nuovi percorsi di ricerca sulle violenze squadriste nelle carte giudiziarie, in Fascismo e Storia d’Italia. A un secolo dalla Marcia su Roma. Temi, narrazioni e fonti, a cura di Giovanni De Luna, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2022, pp. 383-422

Personal Archives

Stefano Vitali, «Io sono uno che non butta... Io faccio delle pile...»: rappresentazioni, immagini e fantasmi negli archivi di persona, in "Le Carte e la Storia, Rivista di storia delle istituzioni" 2/2022, pp. 26-34, doi: 10.1411/105834

Teaching methods

Lectures and visits at the Ravenna State Archives (Ravenna), the Teatro delle Albe Archive (Ravenna), the Gramsci Emilia-Romagna Foundation (Bologna) and the Monte di Bologna and Ravenna Foundation (Bologna).

Assessment methods

Oral interview and preparation of a written report on the activities carried out in the archive (to be delivered one week before the exam). The knowledge of the topics discussed during the lessons and of the recommended bibliography, the understanding of the use of research tools and the critical and methodological skills developed by the students will be evaluated.

Teaching tools

Slides and sheets of theoretical and institutional history analysis, examples of digitized documentation and inventory tools will also be analyzed during the lessons to deepen their use for research and interpretation of sources. During visits to the archives, the original documents will be analyzed directly.

Office hours

See the website of Dario Taraborrelli