Italy’s presence in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register is increasing. Two new inscriptions have been added and regard significant and exceptional documents, i.e. the Fondo Apodissario degli Antichi Banchi Pubblici Napoletani (1573-1809)’ and the Archivio Processo del Disastro della Diga del Vajont. This brings to ten the number of Italian inscriptions on the International Register of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, which was established in 1992 to protect the world’s archival heritage, and has a total of almost 500 inscriptions.
The Fondo Apodissario degli Antichi Banchi Pubblici Napoletani has numerous documents relating to the activity of eight public banks operating in the city from the 16th to the 19th century, thus allowing for historical reconstructions of the modern age through the rich information related to banking exchanges. The Collection constitutes an archive of extraordinary interest for the economic, credit, political, cultural and artistic history of the Kingdom of Naples, etc.
The “Archivio Processo del Disastro della Diga del Vajont” contains the documents of the trial initiated following the tragedy of 9 October 1963, when rocks broke off from the top of Monte Toc and fell into the reservoir of the Vajont Dam, causing the death of 1,910 people.
The following were already part of the International MoW Register: the Malatesta Library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana Collection, Lucca’s Historical Diocesan Archives, the Historical Archives of newsreels and photographs of Istituto Nazionale LUCE, the Codex Purpureus Rossaniensis, the Collection of Barbanera Almanacs, the work of Fray Bernardino de Sahagun and the work of Antonio Carlos Gomes: composer of two worlds.
