| In the last twenty-five years the Societą has undergone many positive changes. We now collaborate in our research with ten other bodies; our Atti (the journal of the Societą) has doubled in size and our library stock has quadrupled. We have also undertaken many new research initiatives; promoted lecture series and held five national and international congresses in which one hundred and fifty-five speakers from the main Italian universities and from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Holland, Spain, the United States and Switzerland took part. These years have also seen the launch of a new series, the "Fonti per la storia della Liguria"; our joint editorship of important works with the École Francaise de Rome, the region of Liguria and above all with the Ministero per i Beni e le Attivitą Culturali. In addition to all of the above, there has also been the organization of important exhibitions such as the four held in different Ligurian cities to coincide with the congress on "Cartographia e istituzioni in eta moderna" in 1986 and perhaps most importantly our staging of the cartographic exhibition ("Colombo e l'apertura degli spazi") which drew huge crowds to the Palazzo Ducale in 1992. |
| Our research activities |
| The Societą works with the following university Departments or Institutions on its own research projects: the Dipartimento di Scienze dell'antichitą e del Medioevo; the Istituto di Storia del Diritto Italiano, the Istituto di Storia economica.
Our research follows two clear directions: 1. the reordering and the inventory of historically important archival and library collections, both public and private; for example those of the Banco di San Giorgio, the private Durazzo-Giustiniani archive and the Durazzo-Giustiniani library; the creation of catalogues (of statutes and published medieval sources for Liguria etc.); 2. the publication of the oldest and most important Ligurian documentary sources, for example monastic papers, "libri iurium" and treatises as detailed below: 1) The inventory of the Archive of the Banco di San Giorgio comprising c. 38,000 pieces held in the Archivio di Stato di Genova, the results of which are published in a series produced under the aegis of the Ministero per i beni culturali-Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici. At present fourteen of an estimated twenty-four volumes have been published. 2) The ordering and the inventory of the private Durazzo-Giustiniani archive and library (owned by Marcello Cattaneo Adorno) which constitute one of the most important private archives and libraries in Italy and certainly the largest in Liguria. They were previously almost unknown and inaccessible until 1976 and consist of the archives of the Durazzo, Pallavicini, Sauli, Cattaneo Adorno and Giustiniani families, within which are part or all of other family archives: those of the Clavesana, the Da Passano, the Centurione, the Grimaldi, the Spinola, the Spinola Pallavicini, the Odone, the Doria, the Negrotto Cambiaso families. In 1981 the Societą published the inventory of the Durazzo archive and in 1995 and 1996 that of the Pallavicini archive. The Cattaneo Adorno and Giustiniani archives have already been systemized, as has that of the Sauli family, and the inventory for the latter will be published in 2001. The Sauli archive contains the documentation for the building of the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta di Carignano, built by the Sauli, who retained the patronage rights of the basilica until this century. Those archives which have been systemized are now open for consultation to suitably qualified scholars. Two volumes have already been published on the Durazzo-Giustiniani library (now owned by Giacomo Cattaneo Adorno): the first on the manuscripts and the second, published in the Atti in 1988 (ed. A. Petrucciani) on the incunabula. We are at present undertaking the reorganization and the inventory of the library, with a view to a printed inventory which will complement the two volumes mentioned above. The library is at present open for consultation to qualified scholars. 3) The cataloguing of Ligurian statutes and legislation from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. The groundwork has been completed and publication is imminent. 4) The cataloguing of published medieval sources for Liguria. This work is almost finished. 5) The complete publication of the "libri iurium" of the Genoese Republic: the official collection of the most important documents of the Genoese Comune such as the privileges granted by the Pope, the Emperor, other kingdoms and foreign principalities and international and national treaties dating back to 958 A.D. Six volumes have already been published and two are currently being printed. A ninth volume will be published in 2001. 6) The publication of international treaties and agreements not included in the above publications. A volume for the period 1202-1257 has already been finished and work is ongoing on the remaining documents of the twelfth century. Publication will be in 2001. 7) The publication of the medieval papers of the monastery of S. Andrea della Porta (12c.-15c); one volume is ready for publication. In addition to the above, three new projects were begun in 1999: 1) In collaboration with the Biblioteca Franzoniana, the cataloguing the sanctuaries of Liguria as part of a national project run by the École Francaise de Rome. The President of the Societą, Professor Dino Puncuh, is in charge of the Ligurian side of the project. 2) In collaboration with the archiepiscopal curia, a census of all ecclesiastical documents to be found in the acts of the Ligurian notaries of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. 3) An analytical and computerized inventory of the acts of the Genoese notaries of the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, with the possibility of the same for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. |