State Archives

By decree of February 20, 1852, Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany established in Florence a Central Directorate of State Archives with the task of providing "the best seal, the good preservation and the most convenient service of many of the state archives." existing in the capital and depends on different offices.
With the same decree, he called Francesco Bonaini to direct that office and appointed a commission to propose the methods with which to physically organize and arrange the archives and favor their opening to the public, which would allow them to "better contribute to the increase of historical studies." . ».

It was the first step towards the establishment of a central State Archive which, established by a decree dated September 30, 1852, was housed in the Uffizi factory. The Diplomatic, the Reform, the Mediceo, the Rendito Real, the Royal Law, the Tithes of the Grand Duchy, the Monte Comune and Demanio and the suppressed religious corporations were concentrated in the new Institute. To these were also added in the following years those of the Ministry of Finance, the civil and criminal courts, the Mint and the Reviews and Unions.

The Bonaini wanted to emphasize the historical character of the institution with the material arrangement of the archives, whose sequence was to reflect the history of Florence and Tuscany, or rather the different forms of government that had succeeded it. Therefore, the archives of the Republican era had to follow those of the Medici and Lorraine principalities, arranged according to a design that wanted to convey the idea of an organic development of the history of which they were a product and testimony.

After the Unification of Italy, having established that the State Archives would receive documentation that would no longer be useful to the current administration, the State Archives of Florence also accepted the first card payments from peripheral offices of the state. Among these, we remember the civil status that compiles the records of birth, marriage and death of all the communities of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from 1808 to 1865; The archive of the Prefecture, of the judicial offices. Other important acquisitions were the modern notarial archive, the 19th century Tuscan land register and the numerous private archives purchased, donated or deposited.

However, in view of these significant acquisitions, the problem of lack of space for further growth for the State Archive arose, a problem that became urgent in the mid-fifties of the 20th century, for which it was worth the worth considering a transfer. The flood of November 4, 1966, which significantly damaged the documentary heritage, accentuated the need to find another location for the Florentine institute. After identifying the suitable area in Piazza Beccaria, along the ring road designed by architect Giuseppe Poggi in the 19th century, the new building was designed by Italo Gamberini and the group of architects he led and officially inaugurated on February 4 of 1989.

Currently, the State Archive of Florence, which also has a subsidiary repository in Sesto Fiorentino, preserves more than 600 funds, for a total of more than 75 km of documents, from the 8th century. today, of the most diverse types: correspondence, diplomas, illuminated codes, statutes, drawings, nautical and geographical maps that carry the historical memory of the political, social, cultural and artistic events of Florence and Tuscany and that make up the Archive of State of Florence, a reference point for researchers from all over the world.