Filippo de Vivo, University of Birkbeck (London), is the head of a research programme devoted to the comparative history of the archives of Rome, Venice, Florence, Modena, Milan, Naples and Palermo, from the preservation of administrative documents in the city-States of the 12th century to the creation of the Italian State Archives. This project, funded by the European Research Council, proposes to question the long term process of institutionalising document preservation in...