Archival Sources for the Study of Confraternities in Livorno

Documentation for the study of Livornese confraternities is concentrated in a relatively small number of respositories, though gaps certainly remain.The largest single relevant deposit of materials is in the State Archive of Livorno (Archivio di Stato di Livorno, or ASLi), established in 1941 and holding materials formerly held in the city archives.It currently occupies quarters on the third floor of the Palazzo del Governo in the heart of the city. 1 The main archive website offers further directions and instructions on how to access materials: https://archiviodistatolivorno.cultura.gov.it/home.Many of its inventories are available online, and a project to digitize key documents is underway under the oversight of Director Dott.ssaMarianna Volpin.Users planning to consult materials are asked to contact the archive by email a few days in advance for current opening days and hours: [email protected] ASLi has a large fonds holding the records of confraternities active in the city through the early modern period and until the suppressions of 21 March 1785 by Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Tuscany.The inventory for the fonds, which is identified as Confraternite 1599-1785, is #31 in the ASLi Reading Room and is also accessible on-line: https://archiviodistatolivorno. cultura.gov.it/patrimonio/inventari/compagnie-confraternite-e-congregazio-ni-1599-1785.The Confraternite fonds contains 356 documents, organized alphabetically under the forty names that brotherhoods were using at the time of suppression under Grand Duke Leopold in 1785.Given the mergers of brotherhoods that had taken place over the course of the early modern period, the documents themselves cover more than simply forty confraternities.There are great disparities between the holdings for particular groups.The collections of some confraternities, such as S. Barbera dei Bombardieri and the Nativit di S. Maria Vergine, hold dozens of documents, and others such as S. Antonio di Fortezza Vecchia and S. Vincezo Ferreri hold only one.The materials are almost entirely administrative and financial: statutes, minutes of meetings, descriptions of activities, inventories, ledgers of income and expense, etc. although as in any archive there are always unexpected materials that offer a more vivid narrative image of the confraternity's life and activities.