Archivio Muratoriano
Item
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Country
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IT
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Name of institution (English)
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Estense Library
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Language of name of institution
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ita
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Contact information: postal address
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Largo Porta Sant'Agostino 337, 41121 Modena
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Contact information: phone number
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0039 0594395711
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Contact information: email
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ga-esten@beniculturali.it
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Reference number
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Archivio Muratori
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Type of reference number
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Archival reference number
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Title (English)
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Muratoriano Archive
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Title (official language of the state)
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Archivio Muratoriano
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Language of title
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ita
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Creator / accumulator
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Lodovico Antonio Muratori
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Date note
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Predominantly 17th and 18th centuries
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Language(s)
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ita
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Extent
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c. 100,000 documents
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Type of material
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Textual Material
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Physical condition
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Good
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Scope and content
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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.
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Biblioteca Estense universitaria, Archivio Muratori, 52.03
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Archival history
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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:
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Internet Culturale: cataloghi e collezioni digitali delle biblioteche Italiane
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Administrative / Biographical history
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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.
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(source: Encyclopaedia Britannica)
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System of arrangement
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The fonds is arranged sequentially.
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Author of the description
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Carla Vieira, 2022
