THE TITLE

«VATICAN SECRET ARCHIVES» A picture of Paul V (1605-1621),

founder of the Vatican Secret Archives,

kept in the rooms of the «piano nobile»

of the Archives building When in 1610 Paul V founded the new Archives in the Vatican, thus transferring to the new premises in the Vatican Palaces the volumes and the documents until then preserved in the Archive of the Apostolic Camera, in the Vatican Library and in Castel S. Angelo, we can start talking about the “Vatican Secret Archives” (Archivum Secretum Vaticanum) and in some cases they were also called «Apostolic Vatican Secret Archives». This was due to the analogy with the Apostolic Library, called «Bibliotheca Secreta» since the XV Century. The term «secret» (secretum), besides, since the XV Century, was used in both secular and ecclesiastical courts, for people or institutions close to the prince (in our case to the pope) and to his «familia». As a matter of fact, the trusty person of the prince, with whom he discussed the most reserved or delicate matters and it was often the person who prepared the respective documents, was called «secretarium». Therefore, in the family roles of the prince, apart from the secretarii, there was the «secret servants», the «secret cupbearer», the «Secret squire» etc. The same phenomenon could be seen also within the papal familia: where there were the secretarii, the camerarius secretus, the sacrista secretus, the secretus carver and other figures called in the same way. Therefore, the term described mainly the people who were immediately and directly at the service of the prince (or the pope). The same thing happened with offices and institutions of the court, and therefore we have the «bibliotheca secreta», the «camerae secretae», the «capella secreta» and, therefore, also the «archivum secretum». In the latter, we are talking about the private archive of the prince (the secret archive of the Gonzagas, the Estensis, the Montefeltros, etc.). The prince was the absolute owner of the archive and directly administrated it, by assigning to it a person who then carried the same title: «scriptor secretus», «bibliothecarius secretus», etc. The Roman Pontiffs acted just like the institutions and the usages of that time. Some institutions or offices of their court, as well as various members of their familia, maintained the designation secretus, secretum, practically meaning nearly «personal», «confidential», exclusively «private». It is in this sense that the «Vatican Secret Archives» has to be interpreted even today, because it is the private archive of the Pontiff, over which only he himself exercises the supreme jurisdiction. It was thanks to Leo XIII’s liberality that qualified scholars and historians could be admitted to the Vatican Secret Archives (1881). Nevertheless, this does not mean that the Archives cease to be «private» in every respect, subject solely to the orders of the Roman Pontiffs.