Pope orders expansion of Vatican Apostolic Archive and Library

Vatican News

With a chirograph, Pope Leo has granted the Vatican Apostolic Archive and Vatican Apostolic Library an additional area within the Vatican City State, and asked that a new building be constructed.

The need for the new building arises, the Pope writes, from the “considerable increase over recent decades in the Holy See’s bibliographic holdings”, as well as the increase in “the documentary production of its Institutions,” which have made the spaces available to the Archive and the Library “insufficient.”

The chirograph recalls that Pope Francis had identified an area belonging to the Lateran, on the other side of Rome’s city centre, as “a suitable location for this purpose.” In recent months, however, Pope Leo says, “new opportunities have arisen for creating new spaces within the territory of the Vatican City State,” which are “preferable for multiple reasons to the solution already identified.”

A new building

The Pope, therefore, noting the importance of “the institutions that preserve and safeguard the administrative and cultural memory of the Apostolic See,” orders that the area of the so-called ‘Fontana dell’Autoparco’ and its adjoining areas be assigned to the Vatican Apostolic Archive and the Vatican Apostolic Library, according to the boundaries indicated in the attached plan.

The Pope also asks that “in accordance with the most modern architectural and technological principles, and in compliance with the regulations in force, a new building be constructed, to be primarily dedicated to the needs of the Vatican Apostolic Archive and the Vatican Apostolic Library,” one which will be split equally between the two with one section for the Vatican City State’s other needs.

Provision and management of resources

The Pope writes that “the Governorate of Vatican City State will act in full agreement with the Vatican Apostolic Archive and the Vatican Apostolic Library, bearing the cost of the spaces intended for State services, with the exception of the relocation of the motor pool and the new parking area, which will be borne by the Apostolic Archive and Library.”

Furthermore, in order to “obtain the financial resources necessary for the construction of the spaces” intended for the Archive and Library and for the effective management of resources, the Pontiff establishes that the two, “in their capacity as Founding and Promoting Entities,” establish “a Vatican instrumental foundation.” The foundation is to be governed according to the legal and operational rules set out in the Motu Proprio “on instrumental juridical persons of the Roman Curia,” of 5 December 2022.

Pending the construction of the new building, the chirograph concludes, the Vatican Apostolic Library will continue to use the storage spaces that it currently occupies at the Pontifical Major Roman Seminary.