Your Ancestors at the Archives

On Thursday, June 20, from 6:30 p.m., in the 16th-century building called Palazzo Ricca, you can follow the clues to discover the past starting with the ancient bank accounts kept at the Historical Archives of the Banco di Napoli where you can see the payments made by people who have your surname and may be your ancestors!

With “Antenati d’Archivio – Alla ricerca della tua eredità” (Ancestors in the Archives – the search for your inheritance) you can become an archivist for an evening by researching your own origins from among the documents of the ancient Neapolitan public banks. 

The Museum of the Banco di Napoli Historical Archives/ilCartastorie invites you to our participatory research experiment among the pandette (ancient client registers), the libro maggiore (which include double-entry client accounting records) and the copiapolizze (daily copybooks where all of the detailed reasons for payment were copied).

The evening will begin with a visit to ilCartastorie and the Kaleidos multimedia exhibition in order to dive into the world of the stories conserved in the ancient accounting registers such as narrated accounts of events surrounding the Veiled Christ and the life of Caravaggio.

After entering the atmosphere of these ancient Neapolitan banks, participants can continue on to the private rooms of the Archives, guided by a professional archivist, and begin to do research on their own surname!

The objective? To trace their own inheritance back to the ducats and the families, in a journey through the historical identity of the city of Naples.

The event is reserved for a maximum of 15 people

Tickets will be 15 € at the door

Please note:

– To allow for some preliminary research, participants will be asked to specify the surname they would like to study at the time they make reservations for the event. It is also important to note that, like in all research, there is no guarantee that results will be found. 

– The dust in the Archive can stain your clothes. We suggest that you wear clothes that are appropriate to the task and which are also comfortable enough to allow you to work with the largest ledgers! 

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