The vast bulk of information contained in the hundreds of thousands of "causali" (payment reasons) allows a reconstruction of an infinite number of stories covering the most diverse aspects of life in southern Italy in the modern and contemporary age. The Banco di NapoliHistorical Archive has always, thanks to the particular richness of its documentation, received attention from numerous scholars, and the Banco di NapoliFoundation has always taken care of and ensured the possibility of studying and researching the archive's contents.
But the desire to make this boundless wealth of information and history known and appreciated beyond the confines of the academic world has inspired the Foundation to open the Archive to a non-expert audience.
Dal documento alla divulgazione (2012) by Damiano Falanga - ilCartastorie foundation ©ilCartastorie | Museo dell'Archivio Storico del Banco di Napoli
In order to respond effectively to this need, the museum project ilCartastorie was created, which pursues the objective with a narrative approach, based on storytelling techniques, thus combining the need for historical and scientific accuracy with the straightforward transmission of the contents.
The stories, based on careful study of the documents and previously published research, allow the visitor to be involved in an original experience which, for the first time in Europe, allows us to understand the meaning and the vastness of the information kept in a great Archive through the most varied forms of communication, from multimedia installations to theatrical performances.
The museum's management of the Historical Archive is executed as a group of activities aimed not only at guaranteeing access to the structures which hold the documents, that is as a mere "opening" of the Archive, but rather as an overall strategy aimed at the knowledge, enhancement and preservation of the documentation systems.
This is done in the belief that it is precisely from this kind of management that a more widespread knowledge of the Archive itself and its important contents can emerge and, consequently, that the number and type of its recipients can increase.
To do this, alongside the consolidated areas of research and transcription of the Archive's papers, it becomes a priority to develop management and communication methodologies which can realistically guarantee a future for the documents' preservation.
It is therefore necessary to make the fruits of this work and the context to which they are applied known and appreciated, to demonstrate their usefulness, without renouncing scientific rigor but also moving beyond technicality.
It has become decisively important to translate this vision into models of communication and initiatives which bring citizens closer to "their" archive.
In this context, defining a management model therefore means building a modern cultural service in which the papers, already well preserved and inventoried, can be transformed into documents which reveal valuable information for telling their stories and thus succeed in "talking" to everyone.
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