The Vatican Collections 
17 
of historical significance down to 1815, although the absence of a general rule 
leaves regrettable lacunae which might be supplied from the offices. 
The Archivio suffered severely in its removal to Paris in 1810 and 1811 
and its return in 1815 to 1817. 8 In some way a very large collection of vol¬ 
umes and bundles, both manuscript and printed, belonging to the Congrega¬ 
tion of Rites, was left there; first in the Archives Nationales, and then moved 
to the Bibliotheque Nationale, where they are now classed under the heading 
H. 359 A. 9 Some other administrative series were sold at the same epoch by 
the first papal agent and repurchased, but no longer complete, by a later. 10 
Finally an enormous mass of the records of the Holy Office was burned to 
save the cost of transportation. On the whole, however, it has grown con¬ 
stantly more complete, as it has secured from time to time the collections of 
archival material made by great prelates and long retained in their families. 11 
The traditions handed down from the early days of its history, formed 
when ideas of archive management were crude, have so far prevented a scien¬ 
tific arrangement of material. There is no distinction between the archives 
of the government of the Papal States and of the government of the Church; 
the archives of the several offices are not kept separate; and for the most 
part the annexed collections are kept as they are secured, without separation 
of archive material. 
There is no general inventory, nor even a list of the collections constituting 
it. There are, however, nearly 700 indexes and inventories of every sort re¬ 
lating to portions of it. 12 These are kept in the room of the acting head of 
the Archivio, and are freely accessible for consultation—a privilege which 
has not always accompanied permission to use these or similar archives. As 
a guide to these there is a manuscript “ Inventarium Indicum in Secretiori 
Archivo Vaticano unica serie existentium,” prepared by Mgr. Wenzel in 
1901, and with later additions. This classes them in the following nine 
groups: 
Ex fragmentis nonnullorum indicium et Thesauri Pon¬ 
tificals inventariis.” 
Ex archivi S. Angeli indicibus.” 
“ Ex indicibus secretions Vaticani. ,, 
“ Ex indicibus diversarum Bibliothecarum.” 
“ Ex indicibus Bullarum Regestorum Vaticanorum nec 
non Brevium Apostolicorum.” 
325-436. “ Ex indicibus Bullarum Regestorum Datariae Apos- 
tolicae.” 
Ex collectione Garampiana (Schedario). ,, 
Ex indicibus Bullarum Regestorum Avenionensium.” 
Collectio Garampiana (Miscellanea). 
1-9. 
10-70. 
7I-I95- 
196-239. 
240-324. 
437-556. 
557-669. 
670-681. 
(C 
a 
tt 
(i 
u 
8 Delisle, as above. 
9 Analecta Bollandiana, V. 147-161, contains a catalogue of these papers. They in¬ 
clude inquisitions, interpretations, conclusions, objections, summaries of responses, etc. 
10 Delisle, as above. 
u There are many accounts of the history of the Archivio. For the period to about 
1800 the best is by Gaetano Marini, Memorie Istoriche degli Archivi della Santa Sede, 
reprinted by Laemmer in his Monumenta Vaticana (Freiburg, 1861), pp. 431-453. For 
the later period see G. Palmieri, Manuductio, introduction. The most comprehensive 
modern summary is in Bourgin, Archives Pontificates, pp. 11-42. 
12 Bourgin, Archives Pontificates, pp. 23-34; Louis Guerard, Petite Introduction aux 
Inventaires des Archives du Vatican (Rome, Paris, 1901, pp. 39). Also, “Notes sur 
quelques Inventaires des Archives Pontificales ”, in Annales de St. Louis des Frangais, 
IV. 479-508. 
