Stanza Storica: Haebraeos
Item
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Country
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IT
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Name of institution (English)
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Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
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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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Piazza del Sant'Uffizio 11, 00193 Rome
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Contact information: phone number
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0039 0669895945
0039 0669895942
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Contact information: email
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archive@cfaith.va
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Reference number
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ACDF, S. O. Stanza Storica. Haebraeos
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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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Historical Room: Jews
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Title (official language of the state)
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Stanza Storica: Haebraeos
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Language of title
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lat
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Creator / accumulator
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Congregazione del Sant'Uffizio dell'Inquisizione
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Date note
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16th century/19th century
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Language(s)
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ita
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lat
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por
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spa
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Extent
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137 volumes
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Type of material
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Textual Material
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Scope and content
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Within the Stanza Storica section, the collection entitled Haebreos contains documentation related to the Jewish communities in the Italian peninsula, as well as numerous records on other destinations of the Western Sephardic diaspora, especially concerning the relations between the Roman Holy Office and Iberian Inquisitions. Through this documentation of various kinds, it is possible to reconstruct the relations of the Jews with the local Christian populations, the concessions and privileges granted to them, the measures taken by the Roman Inquisitorial Tribunal, and to find numerous documentation relating to Jews converted to Christianity.
A sub-series of about seven units is dedicated to "Judaizzantes Lusitaniae" (Portuguese Judaizers). Many of these records offer detailed information on the jurisdictional conflicts that arose during the 17th century between the Roman Holy Office and the Portuguese Inquisition regarding New Christians. There are two trials and numerous supplications that were sent from Portugal to Rome by New Christians. A trial against Portuguese New Christians in Pisa, kept in St.St. BB 5 b, was recently recounted by Novoa (2019). Another vast field of investigation that emerges from the documentation preserved in the vast Stanza Storica concerns forced baptisms and oblations of children and adults. Numerous cases have been investigated in this context by Marina Caffiero (2012).
In segnature St.St. Q 4-q a fragment of Halakot is preserved, with commentaries of Yishaq ben Ya'aqov Alfasi, written in square Sephardic script with Italian influences and dating back to the 13th or 14th century. This fragment specifically contains Šabbat 49a-50a.
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Archival history
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The archival section called Stanza Storica is composed of nearly 2,000 storage units, divided into distinct series and sub-series. At the beginning of the 20th century, this complex of documentation was deposited in the Stanza Quarta (Room Four) of the Holy Office palace. Until then, the documentation had remained in the Apostolic Palace, where it had been deposited since 1851 after the recovery of the entire Archive of the Holy Office, which had been seized by the organs of the Roman Republic of 1849.
The layman Pietro van der Eerenbeemt directed the transference of the documentation, initiating an organisation by material subject. The reorganisation was only completed in the 1940s by the Jesuit archivist Wilhelm Hentrich. The Haebraeos section derives from this reorganisation. It is composed of documents that had previously belonged to other series of the Archives of the Holy Office. In fact, some volumes can be associated with the Dubia, Censura Librorum, Devotiones Variae series, etc. The individual descriptions of these series as well as their original series can be reconstructed through the SHADES online inventory, currently only available in the archive's reading room.
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(source: SIUSA Archivi Inquisitoriali Italia)
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Administrative / Biographical history
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The history of the Roman Inquisition and its archive begins with the appointment by Paul III of a commission of cardinals, which took place on July 21, 1542 with the Bull "Licet ab initio". This congregation was intended to defend the Church from heresies, to maintain the integrity of the faith and to identify and condemn errors and false teachings. When Paul IV died in 1559, the Roman people sacked and burnt the first seat of the Inquisition, located in via di Ripetta, causing the loss of much of the original documentation.
In 1566, Pius V established the seat of the congregation and its archive in the current palace. Initially, the archiving of the documentation was determined by the procedural activity carried out by the congregation. In the second half of the 18th century, a reorganisation by subject was undertaken, separating the criminal issues from the doctrinal ones and creating the series that still compose the archive today. During the 19th century, the Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede was subject to various movements and suffered considerable dispersions. With the union of Rome to the French Empire in 1809, it was transported to Paris by order of Napoleon. For the return of the archives to Rome in 1816, the Apostolic Delegate was mandated to destroy the parts of the documentation not strictly essential to administrative activity.
The criminal series were almost entirely burnt and only a few important trials were saved. During the Roman Republic of 1849, the complex of documents underwent further transfers and losses and only in 1868 the part of the documentation necessary for the current administration was relocated to the palace of the Holy Office, while the oldest closed series remained stored in the Apostolic Palace until 1901. Then, this archival material was recovered and rearranged, forming the so-called Stanza Storica. This has remained the main structure of this archive to the present day. The Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede was open for consultation by scholars in 1998.
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(source: Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede official Website)
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Finding aids
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"Fondo Santo Officio-Stanza Storica. Inventario provvisorio". Ottobre 1999.
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"Inventario generale Shades 6 Ecclesia" (Software for Historical Archives Description – Ecclesia) only available in the reading room
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Author of the description
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Andrea Cicerchia, 2021
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Bibliography
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Bräcker, Antje, and Stephan Wendehorst. 2004. “The Series ‘Stanza Storica’ of the Sanctum Official in the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as a Source for the History of the Jews.” In The Roman Inquisition, the Index and the Jews. Contexts, Sources and Perspectives, 169–76. Studies in European Judaism. Leiden: Brill.
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Caffiero, Marina, and Lydia G. Cochrane. 2012. Forced Baptisms: Histories of Jews, Christians, and Converts in Papal Rome. The S. Mark Taper Foundation Imprint in Jewish Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Caffiero, Marina. 2012. Legami Pericolosi: Ebrei e Cristiani Tra Eresia, Libri Proibiti e Stregoneria. Einaudi Storia 42. Torino: G. Einaudi.
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Frattarelli Fischer, Lucia. 2000. “Cristiani nuovi e nuovi ebrei in Toscana fra cinque e seicento. Legittimazioni e percorsi individuali.” In L’identità dissimulata: giudaizzanti iberici nell’Europa cristiana dell’età moderna, Pier Cesare Ioly Zorattini, 99–149. Firenze: L. S. Olschki.
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Frattarelli Fischer, Lucia. 2002. “Reti locali e reti internazionali degli ebrei di Livorno nel Seicento.” In Commercial Networks in the Early Modern World, Diogo Ramada Curto and Anthony Molho, 148–75. Florence: European University Institute.
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Galasso, Cristina, ed. 2011. “The Return to Judaism of New Christian Men and Women in Livorno and Pisa.” In Sephardi Family Life in the Early Modern Diaspora, Julia R. Lieberman, 101–28. Waltham, Mass. : Hanover: Brandeis University Press; Published by University Press of New England.
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Huerga Criado, Pilar. 2012. “Cristianos nuevos de origen ibérico en el Reino de Nápoles en el siglo XVII.” Sefarad 72 (2): 351–87. https://doi.org/10.3989/sefarad.012.011.
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Huerga Criado, Pilar. 2017. “La Inquisición Romana En Nápoles Contra Los Judaizantes (1656-1659).” Libros de La Corte monográfico 6 / 9: 303–22.
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Novoa, James Nelson W. 2019. “I ‘Cristiani Nuovi’ Di Pisa e Il Mondo Atlantico Nelle Carte Del Sant’Uffizio Durante Il Granducato Di Ferdinando de’ Medici.” In L’inquisizione Romana e i Suoi Archivi: A Vent’anni Dall’apertura Dell’ACDF: Atti Del Convegno, Roma, 15-17 Maggio 2018, 177–92. Rome: Gangemi editore SpA international.
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Perani, Mauro, and Enrica Sagradini. 2004. Talmudic and Midrashic Fragments from the Italian Genizah: Reunification of the Manuscripts and Catalogue. Quaderni Di Materia Giudaica 1. Firenze: Giuntina.
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Pizzo, Marco. 2008. “La Stanza Storica dell’Archivio del Sant’Uffizio come fonte per la storica dell’Inquisizione. Una ricognizione archivistica e un metodo d’intervento.” In Verbotene Bücher Zur Geschichte des Index Im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert., edited by Hermann H Schwedt and Hubert Wolf, 209–18. Boston: BRILL.
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Pizzorusso, Giovanni, Gaetano Platania, and Matteo Sanfilippo, eds. 2012. Gli Archivi Della Santa Sede Come Fonte per La Storia Del Portogallo in Età Moderna: Studi in Memoria Di Carmen Radulet. Priima edizione. Biblioteca. Serie Emigrazione 18. Viterbo: Sette città.