 Former seal of the Vatican Apostolic Archive | |
| Archive overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1612 |
| Headquarters | Cortile del Belvedere, Vatican City[1] 41°54′17″N 12°27′17″E / 41.90472°N 12.45472°E |
| Archive executives |
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| Website | www |
| Map | |
  Location on a map of Vatican City | |
The Vatican Apostolic Archive (Latin: Archivum Apostolicum Vaticanum; Italian: Archivio Apostolico Vaticano), formerly known as the Vatican Secret Archive,[2][3] is the central repository in the Vatican City of all acts promulgated by the Holy See.
The Pope, as the sovereign of Vatican City, owns the material held in the archive until his death or resignation, with ownership passing to his successor. The archive also contains state papers, correspondence, account books,[4] and many other documents that the church has accumulated over the centuries.
Pope Paul V separated the Secret Archive from the Vatican Library, where scholars had some very limited access, and the archive remained closed to outsiders until the late 19th century, when Pope Leo XIII opened the archive to researchers, more than a thousand of whom now examine some of its documents each year.[5]
- ^ "Contacts". Vatican Secret Archives. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
newnamewas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
unsecretwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Pastor, Ludwig von (1906). The History of the Popes, from the Close of the Middle Ages: Drawn from the Secret Archives of the Vatican and other original sources. Vol. III. K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company, Limited. p. 31.
- ^ Boyle, Leonard E. (2001). A Survey of the Vatican Archives and of Its Medieval Holdings. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. p. 14. ISBN 9780888444172.