In January 1998, the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (ACDF) inaugurated officially the admission of scholars to research, by opening its own historical sources to free consultation. During a solemn day held at the National Lincean Academy and presided over by the then Prefect of the Dicastery, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, impetus was given solemnly to a path that now counts two decades of existence.
To commemorate the twenty years of the event, which has marked an important turn in the studies on the Roman Inquisition, the Management of the Archive has organized an international Congress of studies entitled “The Roman Inquisition and Its Archives, Twenty Years after the Opening of the ACDF,” which will take place on May 15, 16 and 17, 2018, in the Library of the Senate (Piazza della Minerva, 39), situated within the so-called “Dominican Island of Santa Maria sopra Minerva,» so linked to the historical events regarding the Congregation of the Holy Office and of the Index of Prohibited Books.
The Congress, which also constitutes the fourth meeting of the Memoria Fidei series, inaugurated in 2013 as a stable forum for collaboration and updating between the ecclesiastical archives, will witness the participation of forty scholars from Italy and from several countries of Europe, from the United States and from Canada. H. E. Monsignor Francisco Luis Ladaria Ferrer, S.J. , Prefect of the Congregation, will introduce the works. He will be followed by the opening address of Andrea Del Col and a Round Table moderated by Carlo Ginzburg, in which Albrecht Burkardt, Marina Caffiero, Marta Fattori, Massimo Firpo, Pilar Huerga Criado, Luciano Malusa, Sivana Seidel Menchi and Leen Spruit will participate. The successive sessions of the congress will be dedicated respectively to: The Frontiers of Research; The Inquisitions: Places and Persons; The Inquisition between Narrative, Cinema and Current Affairs Journalism.
At the end of the second day, a concert of the Music Chapel of Santa Maria in Portico in Campitelli and of the “La Cantoria” ensemble of Rome will be held in the Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. They will perform, only in part, the oratorio of Don Francesco Niccolo De Rossi (1625 ca. – post 1699) and The Fall of the Angels (1656), under the direction of Maestro Vincenzo Di Betta.
The Congress’s conclusions will be entrusted to Herman Schwedt and to Monsignor Alejandro Cifres, Director of the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The program and registration procedure for the Congress can be viewed on the site www.memoriafidei.va
