Rerum italicarum scriptores
It was published between 1723 and 1751 in twenty-eight folio volumes by the Milanese Palatine Society with financial support from a number of aristocrats including Filippo Argelati and Carlo Archinto.
Ludovico Antonio Muratori prefect of the most serene Duke of Modena's library, collected, organised and expanded with prefaces, some by himself, others by associates of the Milanese Palatine Society from the faithfully copied manuscript codex, and with intense effort diligently corrected, and with various explanations and notes from both ancient and more recent scholars.
Adding to a more complete work and illustration of a universal history of Italy, new geographical tables, and various lists of the Lombard Kings, Emperors, and other classes of Princes, which the same documents permit to be described, now first published or corrected, not to mention the ancient style of characters and representations of Æneas.
He developed the efforts made earlier by Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini to establish a systematic approach towards the collection of documents supporting historiography that eventually led to the birth of national histories, such as the Monumenta Germaniae Historica in Germany.
Apostle Zeno [it], based at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, had first suggested printing a collection manuscripts documenting Italian history, as Heinrich Meibom had started in Germany, "and others have done the same of those of England, France and Spain".
In 1702, he and Muratori shared a list of manuscript codexes they were aware of, but Zeno was eventually appointed to the Imperial Library in Vienna and they made no further progress.
In 1714, Muratori began a series of visits to various libraries across Italy, furnished with letters of commendation from the Duke of Modena and King George I of Great Britain.
They considered printing in Geneva, or giving the work to Pieter van der Aa in Leiden, but were concerned about the distances involved and the transmission of the texts.
Archinto, to raise the necessary funds, formed a society of Milanese noblemen under the name of Società Palatina, each of whom subscribed a considerable sum.
Much of the material had previously been transcribed and published, but Muratori was able to access unpublished manuscript codexes in the libraries he was associated with, and to correct earlier transcriptions.
[2] Although Muratori and Argelati had chosen Milan for the production of the work, it did not have a printing industry: there was no-one skilled in engraving or capable of casting the typefaces.
The subscribers' funds were used to create a printing works from scratch and Governor Colloredo provided space for the presses within the royal palace.
These financial pressures led to calls for the more interesting codexes to be published immediately, but Muratori stuck to his policy of placing them in chronological order and including texts which had already been transcribed and printed by others to create a complete record.
[2] The discovery of the printing press has ... been a great impediment, in certain countries, to the truth, which once came out more freely in manuscripts.Although Muratori was a deeply religious man and inclined to defer to the ecclesiastical and civil authorities, he also deplored the abuses of censorship.
[note 1]) Some of his collaborators thought that the volumes should be submitted to the Governor and the Holy Office, but Muratori responded that "truth and sincerity are the soul of history" and was diligent in ensuring that nothing had been altered in the printing process.
Daniel Paperbroch, drafting the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum, set the rules of forensic paleography and Jean Mabillon in De re diplomatica (1681) showed the way through the obscure forest of written sources.
Muratori was aware that "no age, no kingdom ever existed in Europe in the past, which could boast of being immune to impostors using the written word".
When he personally carried out the work of transcription, collation, and critical edition, he rarely made mistakes, but when he was forced to rely on the collaboration of local scholars and could not scrutinise documents with his own eyes he incurred some errors.
It mirrors many moments, rather than just one, of the period it is designed to portray but is rich in information and guidance about the boundaries separating the diverse entities present in early medieval Italy.
[4] Muratori's project to collect, edit and publish key source documents from the Middle Ages in chronological order was copied by other nations.
It is a comprehensive series of primary sources, both chronicle and archival, covering Northwestern and Central European history from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500.
In 1900 a new edition (Rerum italicarum scriptores: Raccolta degli storici italiani dal cinquecento al millecinquecento, ordinata da L. A. Muratori, nuova edizione riveduta ampliata e corretta) was undertaken at the instigation of Giosuè Carducci, and continued by the Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo (Italian Historical Institute for the Middle Ages – "ISIME") under the direction of Pietro Fedele.
Il diario romano di Gaspare Pontani, già riferito al "Notaio del Nantiporto" (30 gennaio 1481 – 25 luglio 1492).
De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius, by Gaufredo Malaterra monacho benedictino.
Vita Mathildis celeberrimae principis Italiae: carmine scripta a Donizone presbytero qui in Arce Canusina vixitseguono.
Landulphi junioris sive de Sancto Paulo: Historia Mediolanensis: ab anno 1095 usque ad annum 1137.
Vitae quatuor priorum abbatum Cavensium; Alferii, Leonis, Petri et Constabilis, by Abbott Hugone of Venusino.
Leonardo Bruni Aretino: Historiarum Florentini populi libri XII; & Rerum suo tempore gestarum, commentarius.
Braccii Perusini vita et gesta: ab anno 1368 usque ad 1424, auctore Johanne Antonio Campano.
A new series is being published by the Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo (Italian Historical Institute for the Middle Ages):
