The Egyptian consular archives (1861-1939), rearranged and inventoried during the VERNACOSM research project, are located at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome, stored in separate repositories in two distinct locations within the same building. At the start of the project, the archives were partially not arranged.
The papers were transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which institutionally preserves the documentation of its central and peripheral offices, by the consulates themselves at various times, starting in the early 20th century. Some of the documentation, namely the papers relating to the Italian Consulate in Alexandria, had been reconditioned during an initial reorganisation in the 1990s; the documentation produced by the Italian Consulate in Cairo was mainly stored in old, original containers, some of which have been replaced.
The archives comprise approximately 1,900 units (volumes and boxes).
Based on the 2022 PRIN (Research Project of National Interest) VERNACOSM – Vernacular Cosmopolitanism: History and Archives of Italian Subalterns in Colonial Egypt (1864-1937), coordinated by the Universities of Bologna and Modena-Reggio Emilia (coordinators: Francesca Biancani, UNIBO; and Lorenzo Bertucelli and Maria Chiara Rioli, UNIMORE), it was identified as essential to explore the documentation produced by the consular courts, and in particular, the criminal files. The extensive archives are characterised by the presence of numerous criminal and civil files produced by the respective consular courts and the series of respective judgements.
The analysis focused on these large sections of the archive. The groups of files to be catalogued were identified by the research team, composed of coordinators and research fellows Dr Costanza Lisi and Dr Costantino Paonessa, in the criminal files of the two archives in Alexandria, Egypt, and Cairo, covering the years 1882-1883, 1900, 1911, and 1927.
The archival research, led by Costanza Lisi, was expanded to include civil files from the same years in order to ensure uniformity in the inventory. Similarly, it was considered significant, as an example of a very rich archive, to proceed with the cataloguing of files relating to a longer and more continuous period (1901-1910), thus covering a substantial segment of the documentation produced by the Consulate in Cairo.
VERNACOSM – Vernacular Cosmopolitanism: History and Archives of Italian Subalterns in Colonial Egypt (1864-1937), PNRR Missione 4 Componente 2 Investimento 1.1 “Fondo per il Programma Nazionale di Ricerca e Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN)”, Notice 104/2022, project code: 2022SLF84R - CUP E53D23000320006 - Funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU