Due to its substance, as well as its antiquity, the Capitulary Archives of San Lorenzo is one of the most important documentary complexes of the Fiorentine diocese. The Archives occupy five rooms on the ground floor, its entrance from the second cloister. Assisted by the wealth of information found within the Archives’ documents, it’s possible to travel through the history of the Basilica, the Chapter, and the aspects of everyday Florentine life, in the space of almost a millennium. In fact, it is possible to view sealed and signed Papal bulls, official actions of bishops and secular authorities, volumes of payment records, inheritances, and the administration of assets.

Also of great historical importance are the innumerable traces left by the most important exponents of the Medici family, who over the centuries contributed to the fulfillment of various parts of this monumental Complex.

Particularly rich is the musicology division. In its multiple forms (masses, motets, Magnificats, responsories, psalms, antiphonaries, hymnals, etc.), this section contains a very consistent quantity of “unique” 16th century and High Renaissance constituents. It is also possible to follow the evolution of the art of illumination from the 15th to the 18th centuries by looking at the precious codexes and choir books.

The consistency of the Archives may be summarized by taking into consideration four distinct sections of documents.

1. A substantial collection which contains 1180 documents, including the two diplomatic funds belonging to the Basilica and Abbey of San Benedetto in Alpe as well as the parchments of other monasteries of the San Lorenzo Capitulary.
2. A collection of about 6,000 components, it includes paper assets of the Capitulary Archives and those institutes connected to it. These include the School of Chierici (school for clergymen), the works of charity of the Cappellani (chaplains), and the Parochial Archives, as well as the documents belonging to congregations, pious works, and lay associations who over the centuries worked side by side with San Lorenzo. The archive of the antique Confraternity of St. Francis’s Sacred Stigmata was recently brought back here to San Lorenzo. It was seriously damanged in the flood while it was being stored in underground rooms of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, seat of the Confraternity. It was then transferred to the archive of the Archbishop of Florence.
3. This division includes photographs, slides, audiovisual cassettes, and other items for a total of 2,000 pieces. Its documentation spans the mid-nineteenth century until today and reproduces not only art objects present in the Basilica and Parish, but also particular moments in the life of the devout.
4. Finally, this section collects the musical assets, which, only partly known, conserves important illuminated chorales dating back to the 1400’s.

Actually, the first two divisions of the Archives, whose characteristics reflect the past arrangments of the 17th and 18th centuries, display in catalogues that, had they been compiled at a different time, would have allowed for the consultation of a large part of their documentation. Neither the musical nor the photographic foundation is equipped with such wealth.

Since 1997, the paper assets (the second division) are the subject of a new inventory. This came about when the growing interest in them rendered evident the necessity of offering a tool with the ability to reflect the complicated structure of the funds. Dr. Sonia Puccetti has edited until now about 3,000 units, catalogued on a database, as well as analyzing, in part, the photographs. The analytic cataloguing of the Confraternity of the Holy Stigmata of Saint Francis Foundation is in its concluding stages. It is constituted of, for the most part, loose sheets of paper gathered together in a state of confusion following the flood, then placed in envelopes once they had dried.

For obvious reasons, the consultation of the archives, for the most part made up of splendid leather-bound volumes of manuscripts on parchment, is for the moment reserved for scholars in a special little room under surveillance of a closed-circuit telecamera.