Welcome to the Portal of the Historical Archives of the Metropolitan City of Naples
The Web Portal of the “Historical Archives of the Metropolitan City of Naples“was created as part of the “Enhancing the provision of services for the Metropolitan City’s Historical Archives“, the project is the result of an Institutional Cooperation Agreement between the Municipality of Naples and the Metropolitan City of Naples and is framed in the context of Axis 1 of the Metropolitan Digital Agenda, which is part of the more general development process of the National Operational Programme ‘Metropolitan Cities 2014-2020 (PON Metro)’. The project created a complete and centralised information system for the cataloguing, management and dissemination of the documentary and multimedia heritage of the Historical Archives of the Municipalities of the Metropolitan City of Naples.
Among the features of the Historical Archives of the Metropolitan City of Naples We highlight the decision to separate the management of data, which takes place in the Back End, accessed by specialist users and archivists, and for purposes related to research and study, from the publication of the data themselves through this public Web Portal.
Due to the particular technical architecture, the contents of this Web Portal are constantly evolving and are fed dynamically by the Back End data management system as data are made available for publication.
At present, the municipalities that have joined the project and feed the platform of the Historical Archives of the Metropolitan City of Naples are:
- The Municipality of Naples – project leader and coordinator
- The Municipality of Agerola
- The Municipality of Procida
Therefore, the Web Portal provides access to the data published by the respective Historical Archives.
If, on the other hand, you are a researcher, scholar or need direct access to the Back End of the information system, you can send an e-mail request to the references – ‘Request Back End Access’ – in the Contact section.
Stories from the Archives
The burned papers of the First Series of the Municipal Section
During the Second World War, the entire corpus of documents constituting the Historical Archive of the City of Naples was transferred from the headquarters of Palazzo San Giacomo to the Maschio Angioino, and specifically to the underground rooms of the Beverello Tower, in order to be secured.
Giuseppe Verdi and the Naples Archives
The Historical Archive in Salita Pontenuovo conserves two letters by Giuseppe Verdi from early 1871 addressed to the Mayor of Naples, Paolo Emilio Imbriani, in which the famous composer declined the municipal administration’s invitation to take up the post of director of the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory of Music, which had remained vacant following the death of Saverio Mercadante (17 December 1870), who had led the ancient music school for thirty years.
The Procession of the Blessed Sacrament from the Collegiate Church of San Giovanni Maggiore to the Church of Sant’Anna in Palazzo
In the early 2000s, the then Historical Archive Service of the Municipality of Naples carried out the recovery of the archive of the Real Monte della Venerazione del Santissimo Sacramento in the former Monastery of San Paolo Maggiore”, for which I edited the inventory, which was then published in the series of “Quaderni 2008 dell’Archivio Storico Municipale di Napoli”.
The Court of Fortifications, Water and Bricks
On 4 March 1946, an arson attack destroyed three quarters of the oldest archival series kept at the Naples Municipal Historical Archives: the one that Bartolommeo Capasso had ordered called the First Series or Ancient Section, since it contained the documents of the city’s administrations that followed one another from 1387 to 1805.
Documents of inestimable value from the Angevin and Aragonese periods have disappeared, papers produced during the two viceroyships are missing, better luck has been had by those from the Bourbon era.
Caricature from ‘The S. Giacomo Palace, Album of 80 at Naples City Hall 1876 and 1877’
In 1877, Antonio Manganaro (Manfredonia 1842 – Naples 1921), one of the most famous satirical illustrators of Naples in the second half of the 19th century, printed the colour lithographed plates of Il Palazzo S. Giacomo Album degli 80 al Municipio di Napoli 1876 e 1877, which depict with caricatured strokes the representatives of the Neapolitan municipal administration of those years. On the back of each plate, an ironic biography recounts the human and professional vicissitudes of the person depicted.
Topographical map of the City of Naples and its surroundings
In 1750, the Tribunal of San Lorenzo approved the project to make a topographical map of the city and entrusted the coordination of the work to Giovanni Carafa, Duke of Noja, who availed himself of the collaboration of land surveyor Vanti. It was stipulated that the work was to be completed within two and a half years, but in 1768, when Carafa died, the undertaking was still not finished. Work continued under the direction of Giovanni Pignatelli, Prince of Monteroduni, and the superintendence of the technical part was entrusted to the architect Gaetano Bronzuoli.pictured.