Rerum italicarum scriptores ab anno æræ christianæ quingentesimo ad millesimumquingentesimum is a collection of texts which are sources for Italian history from the 6th to the 15th century, compiled in the 18th century by Ludovico Antonio Muratori.
Muratori's work became a landmark in European historiographical methodology. He set out to construct a history based on the careful accumulation and sifting of evidence. It was published between 1723 and 1751 in twenty-eight folio volumes by the Milanese Palatine Society with financial support from a number of aristocrats including Filippo Argelati and Carlo Archinto.
Title Page
The project
Background Having earlier worked in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana where he began to collect details on historic manuscripts, Muratori was employed by the Este family, Dukes of Modena, as librarian and archivist with the special duty of finding useful documents to justify the territorial claims of the family. This research gave Muratori the inspiration to widen this perspective. He developed the efforts made earlier by Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini to establish a systematic approach towards the collection of documents supporting historiography that eventually led to the birth of national histories, such as the Monumenta Germaniae Historica in Germany.
Much of the background to Muratori's work remains captured in his daily correspondence. Apostolo Zeno, based at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, had first suggested printing a collection manuscripts documenting Italian history, as Heinrich Meibom had started in Germany, "and others have done the same of those of England, France and Spain". In 1702, he and Muratori shared a list of manuscript codexes they were aware of, but Zeno was eventually appointed to the Imperial Library in Vienna and they made no further progress. The House of Este was connected to the House of Welf in Hannover, and this led to Muratori's collaboration with Gottfried Leibnitz. In 1714, Muratori began a series of visits to various libraries across Italy, furnished with letters of commendation from the Duke of Modena and King George I of Great Britain.
Muratori never left Modena after 1717 and by 1719 he had amassed a collection of mainly manuscript histories ready to be printed in four volumes. He was visited by bookseller and publisher Filippo Argelati from Bologna who took up an invitation to help publish the material.
Formation of Società Palatina They had difficulty finding a suitable printer in Modena, and an important factor in choosing a printer was the need to avoid the censorship by the Church or the civil authorities. They considered printing in Geneva, or giving the work to Pieter van der Aa in Leiden, but were concerned about the distances involved and the transmission of the texts. They also approached the authorities in Turin, but they were slow to respond. Argelati traveled to Milan and promoted the work to Count Carlo Archinto, a prominent patron of the arts. Archinto, to raise the necessary funds, formed a society of Milanese noblemen under the name of Società Palatina, each of whom subscribed a considerable sum. Milan was also attractive due to the presence of many source texts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana and its tradition of scholarship. With these means, Argelati was able to start production of the work, which was eventually published in 25 folio volumes (28 parts) between 1723 and 1751 in Milan. Much of the material had previously been transcribed and published, but Muratori was able to access unpublished manuscript codexes in the libraries he was associated with, and to correct earlier transcriptions. Each item was prefaced by a scholarly commentary.
Creating a printing house Although Muratori and Argelati had chosen Milan for the production of the work, it did not have a printing industry: there was no-one skilled in engraving or capable of casting the typefaces. The subscribers' funds were used to create a printing works from scratch and Governor Colloredo provided space for the presses within the royal palace. In order to ensure that they remained independent of the Holy Office, they could not source the type from Venice, which was the centre of printing in Italy, so new type was cast with matrices procured from Holland. Argelati was an experienced publisher and promoter, and his skills and self-belief drove the project forward, though not without tension with his colleagues. This was partly due to his poor administration which obscured the true financial commitment of his aristocratic sponsors. By February 1722 a few proof pages had been printed to everyone's satisfaction. Good quality paper had been sourced locally, though it was a challenge to acquire the quantities they needed. A major fire broke out in the palace at the end of 1723 and although they managed to rescue the presses, some of the printed sheets were damaged.
In February 1725 they were still suffering from a shortage of typeface and were able to operate only two of their three presses. Local flooding had also destroyed the paper mill and it took several years to return to full production.
These financial pressures led to calls for the more interesting codexes to be published immediately, but Muratori stuck to his policy of placing them in chronological order and including texts which had already been transcribed and printed by others to create a complete record. His main problem was the delays involved in achieving access to the source materials, but he thought it better to keep to the chronological thread throughout the whole series and accommodate delayed chronicles by adding a second part to some of the volumes.
Difficulties accessing the texts At the time, Italy was partitioned into many states, some autonomous and others subject to Vienna, Spain, Savoy and the Pope. Not all libraries were allowed to contribute to the project, and even so there was a risk that the manuscripts (or their transcripts) would be stolen or seized by customs officials when in transit. Some sources demanded hefty bonds in case of loss, and in other cases they were transmitted under diplomatic protection. In Milan the project had the sponsorship of the emperor (Charles VI) and the governor (Hieronymus von Colloredo). Each of the principal supporters eventually had a volume dedicated to them, including the republics of Genoa and Lucca and Venice. Despite entreaties to the authorities in Turin, including the promise of a volume dedicated to the Savoy monarch, access to Istoria di Saluzzo was denied as "the chronicle was written by a pen in those partial times of the ancient margraves of Saluzzo, implacable enemies of the Royal House of Savoy".
Avoiding censorship
Although Muratori was a deeply religious man and inclined to defer to the ecclesiastical and civil authorities, he also deplored the abuses of censorship. He had earlier experienced problems getting his work published in Venice and had to turn to Paris. (He had been also criticised by the Inquisitor of Modena for dedicating a work to "the heretic King George of England".) Some of his collaborators thought that the volumes should be submitted to the Governor and the Holy Office, but Muratori responded that "truth and sincerity are the soul of history" and was diligent in ensuring that nothing had been altered in the printing process. Eutropius' Roman history (Vol. 1) was less than complementary about some of the popes, and after the first two volumes had been released the Roman Curia recommended that they should be banned. Muratori worked patiently behind the scenes with the archbishop and the governor to get the Curia to withdraw the demand.
Use of the vernacular There was also a debate whether to publish only Latin translations of vernacular texts, and it was agreed to use translations where the vernacular, such as Venetian or Neapolitan, was difficult even for Italians to read.
An important principle for Muratori was that all texts should be reassessed where multiple sources were available, and this included previously published material. Many communities were concerned that their versions might be undermined and give advantage to a competing community, and from time to time the civil authorities had to instruct monastic libraries to cooperate. The work itself was very time-consuming and relied, in the main, on voluntary contributions.
Authenticity Muratori was well aware that many ancient manuscripts were, in fact, forgeries. Daniel Paperbroch, drafting the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum, set the rules of forensic paleography and Jean Mabillon in De re diplomatica (1681) showed the way through the obscure forest of written sources. Muratori was aware that "no age, no kingdom ever existed in Europe in the past, which could boast of being immune to impostors using the written word". When he personally carried out the work of transcription, collation, and critical edition, he rarely made mistakes, but when he was forced to rely on the collaboration of local scholars and could not scrutinise documents with his own eyes he incurred some errors. He was taken in by certain southern forgers who were keen to protect the reputation of their states and cities. Giovanni Bernardino Tafuri (1695–1760), a well-educated nobleman from Nardò, succeeded in fobbing off Muratori with two outright forgeries, the Ragionamento (Reasoning) of Angelo Tafuri of Nardò and the Chronicon Neritinum.
Maps Muratori's opening preface promises three innovative maps:
"in the time of the aging Roman Empire" (published in Vol. 1); “in, as they say, the Middle Ages, including of course the Lombard kingdom” (Vol. 10); and “the restored fortunes of the Italians under the Emperors and the other Italian princes” (not published).
Muratori states that the foldout map at the front of Vol. 10 shows "at a glance" Italy under the Lombard and Frankish kings with new provinces and cities having been established, and ancient castles, towns, and cities blotted out. It is known to have been drawn by Gasparo Beretti and is complemented by a dissertatio chorographica about medieval Italy. Beretti's map has room for much detail. It mirrors many moments, rather than just one, of the period it is designed to portray but is rich in information and guidance about the boundaries separating the diverse entities present in early medieval Italy. Lombard and Byzantine duchies are there, along with the eastern and western parts of the Lombard kingdom and the Byzantine Exarchate and south Italian possessions.
Legacy Muratori's project to collect, edit and publish key source documents from the Middle Ages in chronological order was copied by other nations.
In Germany, the Monumenta Germaniae Historica was published in Hanover with the first volume appearing in 1826, edited by Georg Heinrich Pertz and subsequently Georg Waitz. It is a comprehensive series of primary sources, both chronicle and archival, covering Northwestern and Central European history from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500.
In Britain, the Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages (Latin: Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores), widely known as the Rolls Series, a major collection of British and Irish historical materials and primary sources, was published with government support in 253 volumes between 1858 and 1911.
Contents of Muratori's edition (RIS)
Volume 1
Preliminaries: Dedication to Charles VI, with an intaglio portrait and engraved dedication by Girolamo Ferroni, Letter to the reader by Argelati; Preface by Muratori; An introduction from the publishers on the use of maps (de tabula geographica) Fold-out map of the Italian peninsular in the late Roman period drawn by Giovanni Giacomo Spinelli, possibly based on an earlier map by De l'Isle.