Vatican opens its secret Archive: There can scarcely be a richer collection of documents than the Vatican's secret archive, and some idea of what the miles of shelves-eight miles in the main store,-contain has been offered to a larger public by the current exhibition of some of the most striking material. The exhibition itself is at outstanding quality and interests The principal aim is to illustrate past Ecumenical Councils by means of the most remarkable documents about them in the Vatican's possession. To these documents has been added, as a kind of pardonable piece of "bravura", a selection of some of the treasures, of the archive which do not necessary fit the context of conciliary history; this part of the exhibition includes many of the gold medals in the collection which is justly a pride of the Vatican. The councils illustrated in the exhibition are nine and begin with the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 which was called by Innocent III. The first exhibit is the register of letters convoking the council sent by Innocent III. There is little in the archive in fact which goes back earlier that the reign of Innocent, which is why the start was made at that point. The archive has come together in a fairly haphazard way. Its real founder was Paul V, who in the early years of the seventeenth century established the first central archive in the Apostolic Palace. Before his time the most precious documents were kept in the papal fortress of Castel Sant'Angelo Gradually the new archive became the repository of most of the Vatican's collections.
Photo measures 9.5 x 7.25 inches.
Photo is dated 01-01-1965.
Photo back:
