Archivio Muratoriano

Item

Country

IT

Name of institution (English)

Estense Library

Name of institution (official language of the state)

Language of name of institution

ita

Contact information: postal address

Largo Porta Sant'Agostino 337, 41121 Modena

Contact information: phone number

0039 0594395711

Contact information: web address

Contact information: email

ga-esten@beniculturali.it

Reference number

Archivio Muratori

Type of reference number

Archival reference number

Title (English)

Muratoriano Archive

Title (official language of the state)

Archivio Muratoriano

Language of title

ita

Creator / accumulator

Lodovico Antonio Muratori

Date note

Predominantly 17th and 18th centuries

Language(s)

ita

Extent

c. 100,000 documents

Type of material

Textual Material

Physical condition

Good

Scope and content

The Archivio Muratoriano is composed of over 100,000 documents divided into two large sections: one containing manuscripts of Muratori's works, as well as his youth notebooks, academic diplomas and various other materials; and the other comprising correspondence, both in original (received letters) and in minutes (sent letters). The correspondence included in this archive amounts to over 20,000 letters exchanged with 2054 correspondents, including attached material of various types. Among these correspondents, there is the Livornese Jewish scholar Joseph Attias (1672–1739), whose letters to Ludovico Muratori are contained in the file 52.03. Attias' letters published in Campli & Forlani (1995), pp. 305-328. A digital copy is available on Internet Culturale website.

Archival history

The Archivio Muratoriano is mostly composed of the personal library of Lodovico Antonio Muratori (1672-1750), the librarian and archivist of the Duke of Este in Modena. In addition, it also includes two other collections of documents related to Giuseppe Orsi, Muratori's friend, and Giovanni Francesco Soli Muratori, who succeeded Lodovico in the "prepositura" (direction) of Pomposa and the position of ducal archivist.
The entire archive was acquired by the Biblioteca Estense in May 1902 from Alessandro Muratori, the last heir of the Muratori's library. In recent years, the collection has been digitalised, and part of its items are now available online on:

Administrative / Biographical history

Lodovico Antonio Muratori (Vignola, 1672 - Modena, 1750) was a scholar and a pioneer of modern Italian historiography. After studying at Modena, he was ordained priest and employed in the Ambrosian library at Milan. There he published the Anecdota (2 vol., 1697–98; two further volumes added, 1713), a selection of texts that he had discovered among the manuscripts belonging to the library. In 1700, he went to Modena as a librarian for Duke Rinaldo I. Legal disputes between the Este family and the Holy See over the ownership of the territory of Comacchio led Muratori to study, in the original documents, some of the juridical and ideological problems of the Italian middle ages. This archival research resulted in the collection of a series of chronicles, diaries, and legal documents that he comprised in the 28-volume work Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 28 vol. (1723–51). At the same time, Muratori was working on his work Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi (6 vol., 1738–42), which includes the Muratorian Canon, a 2nd-century list of the books of the New Testament. In 1744, he began the publication of the Annali d’Italia (12 vol., 1744–49).
Besides a historian and a man of letters, Muratori was also a priest who fought against superstition and medieval scholasticism, as revived by the Jesuits.

Access points: locations

Access points: persons, families

Access points: subject terms

Access points: document types

System of arrangement

The fonds is arranged sequentially.

Links to finding aids

Author of the description

Carla Vieira, 2022

Bibliography

Published primary sources

Item sets

Linked resources

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is part (item) of
Title Alternate label Class
Biblioteca Estense Universitaria Collections (official language of the state)