Roman Historical Institutes - Fields of Investigation

Fields of Investigation

While it is but natural that the study of documents should be chiefly done in the Vatican archives, most investigators also carry on work in the important collection of printed books known as the Vatican Library. In October, 1892, there was opened in connexion with the archives and the Library a consultation library, the "Bibliotheca Leoniana", in order to facilitate research, historical and Biblical. Governments, academies, libraries, archives, and corporations contributed to it, and it has already reached very large proportions. The archives themselves are so organized that nearly every student of history may discover there something of special importance in his own province. The numerous other archives and manuscript-collections of Rome are also open, as a rule, to the student; indeed, few workers limit themselves exclusively to Vatican materials. Moreover, studies begun in the Vatican are often supplemented by scientific excursions to other Italian cities, either on the student's homeward journey or during some vacation period; such excursions have at times resulted in surprising discoveries. An exhaustive examination of Italian archives and libraries leads occasionally to a larger view of the subject than was originally intended by the investigator, for whom in this way new questions of importance spring up, the definite solution of which becomes highly desirable. Experience, therefore, and the detailed study of the numerous repertories, indexes, and inventories of manuscripts, have made it necessary to organize permanently the scientific historical researches carried on in the interest of any given country. This means a saving of money and of labour; in this way also more substantial achievements can be hoped for than from purely individual research. Consequently, institutes for historical research were soon founded in Rome, somewhat on the plan of the earlier archæological societies. While the opening of such institutes is a nobile offlcium of any government, private associations have made serious sacrifices in the same direction and sustained with success the institutes they have called into life. The state institutes investigate all that pertains to national relations or intercourse (religion, politics, economics, science, or art) with the Curia, with Rome, or, for that matter, with Italy. Many of these institutes do not attempt to go further, and their field is certainly comprehensive and in itself admirable. Others devote themselves to similar researches, but do not neglect general questions of interest to universal history, profane or ecclesiastical, or to the history of medieval culture. Of course, only the larger institutes, with many workers at their disposal, can satisfactorily undertake problems of this nature.