L'archivio del Principato vescovile di Trento: strutture burocratiche e prassi di produzione, conservazione e tradizione documentaria (secc. XIV-XX)

The subject of this research is the study of the archival fond produced by the Prince-Bishopric of Trento, an ecclesiastical principality fully included among the 'Fürstentümer' of the Holy Roman Empire: a temporal territorial dominion placed between the cultural area of German and Italian influence, subject to the sovereignty of a bishop, whose episcopal dignity and jurisdiction was associated with the role of immediate prince of the Empire. The period examined stretches mostly from the 14th century - since the identification of the first forms of structured serial-type documentary production and an embryonic chancellery’s system - to the year 1796, terminus ad quem that effectively marks the epilogue of the centuries-old experience of bishops’ temporal government over the Principality and the advent of provisional regimes, prior the definitive secularization of the Hochstift in 1803. A look, moreover, aimed at the exploration and philological reconstruction of the archival fond in the period following secularization, throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century, completes the investigation. A brief description of the historical-institutional profile of the Prince-Bishopric of Trento – examined in the context of the 'Geistliche Territorialherrschaften' of the Holy Roman Empire – introduces the subsequent treatment, that develops along three main strands of investigation strongly related to each other, to each of which has a chapter of the dissertation is dedicated: origin and evolution of the central bureaucratic structures of the ecclesiastical principality; analysis of the methods of production and documentary conservation between the 14th and 18th centuries; exploration of the princely-bishopric documentation’s 'itinera' between Innsbruck, Vienna and Munich during the 19th century and the rearrangements of the records that took place, in particular, in the post-secularization phase of the institution. The investigation relating to the reconstruction of the archival fond, combined with the analysis of the surviving documentation – which has been the object of a preliminary reconnaissance and census – have been conducted following a multi-disciplinary and comparative methodological approach, which allowed a more punctual awareness of the dynamics of fragmentation, dismemberment and subsequent disaggregated relocation of the dispersed documentation. These phenomena, in addition to having compromised the integrity of the documentary complex, have at times contributed to hinder a correct understanding and interpretation of the nature of many documentary typologies, thus limiting the fruition and valorization of the documentary heritage. The study of the archival fond’s structure - investigated in its entirety as a product of the institution’s activity on both sides of the exercise of temporal and spiritual power - constitutes the fulcrum of the dissertation. Therefore, the analytical examination of the documentation is aimed at reconstructing from a logical point of view the hypothetical structure of the documentary complex, as the end point of the historical evolution of the ordering practices implemented by the central bureaucratic apparatus of government of the principality and diocese between the 14th and 18th centuries. Ultimately, this effort is intended to delineate the final parable of this process and to provide a snapshot, albeit partial and somewhat faded of a fonds that, in its organicity, no longer exists. However, this experiment of virtual reconstruction of the archival fond into its hypothetical articulations in sub-fonds, series and sub-series takes on its most convincing meaning when one considers how the ways in which the episcopal principality organized, selected and prepared for use and conservation its own documentation are themselves a source of information for the history of the institution.