The General Archive of the Carmelite Order (AGOC) was established in 1593 by Prior General Giovanni Stefano Chizzola. From its inception, it was not conceived as a central archive collecting material from the numerous Carmelite convents scattered throughout the territory (provincial and local), but rather as the archive of the General Curia alone (hence its designation as “General Archive”). It exclusively reflected the activities of the Prior General and his Council, in its various branches (the Procurator General, Postulator General, Councillors, General Chapters, etc.), and has remained so to this day, although on rare occasions it has acquired material from other institutions linked to the Order.

Chizzola had the documentation issued by him and his curia housed at the Roman convent of Santa Maria in Traspontina, because that building had been chosen, since 1550, as the seat of the general curia itself. Before that date, the prior generals resided in the province from which they came and the archive was itinerant, without a fixed location.

Later, between the 18th and 19th centuries, part of the documentary complex produced by the procurator general, the Order's delegate to the Holy See, also flowed into the AGOC. During the Middle Ages, this office of the Curia had been itinerant, while in the 17th-18th centuries it had settled, alternately and for long or short periods, in the Roman convents of Traspontina, San Martino ai Monti and San Giuliano; finally, during the 18th century, it was permanently transferred to the headquarters of the Order's General Curia, taking with it its particular archive, which was incorporated as a section into the general archive. In recent times, the AGOC has also acquired the historical papers concerning the saints, blesseds and venerable members of the Order and their canonisation processes: in fact, until 2017, this documentation remained in the office of the Order's postulato general, who deals with the causes of beatification and sanctification. Thus, with the deposit and transfer of the aforementioned papers, a section reflecting the activities of the General Postulation and bearing its title has been formed.

From the material prior to 1593, parchments dating from the 12th century are preserved, as well as a small group of documents attributable to the 13th century, originating for the most part from the archive of the procurator general, resident in the convent. Roman Curia. Instead, the vast majority of material resulting from the activity of the prior general and his councillors before 1593 has been dispersed.

At the beginning of the 17th century, AGOC was structured into two large sections: Commune of the Ordere Provinces. Each series of these divisions was distinguished by a letter of the alphabet and, within each series, the units were designated with Arabic numerals. Some groups of documents, concerning particular matters, were bound together in volumes. In the second half of the 18th century, the archive was given a new organisation, with its own signature. The sections were: Commune of the Order, Provinces, Procurator General e Postulator General. Within each series, groups of documents were given appropriate binding, largely respecting the archival unit of origin.

A few years after the suppression of the Mantuan Congregation, which occurred in 1783, the AGOC received its archival documentation, which had been accumulated in the convent of San Crisogono in Rome. This led to the formation of a new documentary collection, named “Mantuana”. Over time, other originally autonomous archives, produced by entities linked to the Order's General Curia, were also added to the General Archive itself: in addition to the fund of the Mantuan Congregation, the archive of the convent of Santa Maria in Traspontina and, in the 20th century, that of the Sant'Alberto International College.

In the centuries of the modern era, there were no shortage of disastrous events that caused damage to the AGOC, which had already suffered serious losses as a consequence of the Tiber flood at the end of the 16th century. The greatest damage and dispersal were caused by a rain flood in 1754 and a fire that occurred around the year 1780, followed, during the Napoleonic period, by the removal, by the French, of part of the material belonging to the sections. Commune of the Order e Provinces and almost the entire collection of the Congregation of Mantua. Furthermore, during the events of the Roman Republic (1849), the AGOC suffered further losses, although it is not possible to establish their exact extent. After the unification of Italy (1870), with the application of laws on the suppression of religious corporations to the territories of Rome and the former Papal States, part of the material was confiscated by the State Archives of Rome, where it remains. This is the fate that befell almost the entire collection produced by the convent of Traspontina, especially its earliest section, and numerous archival units removed from the Commune of the Order, particularly parchments.

From the 20th century, the General Archive of the Carmelite Order has been located, together with the Carmelite Library and the’The Carmelite Institute, at the Sant'Alberto International Centre (formerly the International College), in Rome: in 1901, the prior general Galli had the documentation transferred from the Traspontina to this recently constructed building.

 

This historical reconstruction reproduces, with some revisions, the unpublished notes of Father Emanuele Boaga, O. Carm., former General Archivist of the Order: from AGOC, Personal Archive “Emanuele Boaga, O. Carm.”, Notes: General Archive of the Carmelites (historical section).