A brief history of the collection

Abstract

These papers and parchments, so long deserted, desired no better than to be restored to the light of day... as I breathed in their dust, I sow them rise up. These words were uttered in the 1820s by Jules Michelet when, as a young historian, he visited 'those catacombs of manuscripts' that made up the National Archives of Paris. In many ways, this line of thought mirrors the shock, dismay and, ultimately, the hope and perseverance of a group of researchers who, after founding the Notarial Archives Resource Council (NARC) in 2005, took it upon themselves to spearhead the rehabilitation process of the Notarial Archives in Valletta (NAV).3 At the time, it was very easy for anyone walking through the old grid-patterned streets of Valletta to miss the dilapidated corner building between St Christopher Street and St Paul Street. A weathered, rusty plaque was in place to advertise its contents, however, few persons knew of its importance. Situated just opposite the Old University, this large silent building has for almost a century served as the depository for over two kilometres (over 25,000 volumes) of registers containing an uninterrupted sequence of notarial records reaching back across the centuries.