Paper sunday

Guided tours, exhibitions, meetings, projections, shows to get to know the priceless heritage hidden in libraries and state archives: "paper monuments", custodians of our memory: parchments, manuscripts, documents, books but also drawings, prints, photographs...

It's Domenica di carta (Paper Sunday), the initiative promoted by Mibact and now in its ninth edition, which provides for the extraordinary opening of the State Archives and Public Libraries on October 13. A fascinating journey into the heart of the culture that has made our country great and a special occasion to visit also the palaces and buildings of valuable monumental beauty that house our archives.

In Lucca the State Archives,

to celebrate 75 years since the Liberation of the city, proposes the documentary exhibition 1944-1945. RSI e Dopoguerra a Lucca: reflections from the archives, a documentary journey through its contemporary heritage, in search of evidence on the facts and protagonists that from the beginning of the partisan movement led to the Liberation and the difficult process of purging the immediate post-war period.

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Through the papers of numerous archival fonds, including those of the Prefecture, the extraordinary Court of Assizes of Lucca and Florence, and the prison of S. Giorgio, the voices and profiles of some of the main protagonists of the time emerge, together with testimonies about the facts and events of a moment of great social and institutional confusion that is also reflected in the difficult dialogue with the documentation. The exhibition also includes some relics from the funds of the National Liberation Committees, the National Fascist Party and the Provincial Purge Commission.

The headquarters of the State Archives of Lucca, occupies the sixteenth century Palazzo Guidiccioni: purchased by Duchess Maria Luisa di Borbone since 1822 to make it the seat of the State Archives, but opened to the public only in 1860 thanks to the tireless work carried out by Salvatore Bongi to transfer there and give organic arrangement to the public documentation of Lucca, which remained materially distinct between the General or State Chancellery and the Chamber of Scripture even after the first official creation of a specific State Archives decreed on August 27, 1804 to collect all the papers of the fall of the aristocratic Republic of Lucca.

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Domenica di Carta is now an unmissable appointment to discover the heritage of paper, and not only, that the Archives preserve throughout the national territory, and that tells the story of each of us.

The exhibition will be open to the public on Sunday 13 October from 9:15 am to 12:30 pm.
The guided tours, free of charge and lasting about thirty minutes, will be held at 9:30, 10:30 and 11:30.
To book the guided tour you can call 0583.491465.

More information on the initiatives throughout Italy are available on the website of the Direzione Generale Archivi.