EDUCATION

I studied classics and history, following in the footsteps of, respectively, my mother and my father. I really wanted to study math, but in those times Italian girls were expected to get a liberal education, which would better support their family and societal roles. The 1968 students’ revolution had just happened when I started university and the consequences were not yet tangible. Regardless, I enjoyed my humanistic studies very much, to the point that I wanted to continue with a research degree in history. However, the historian who supervised my thesis, Dr. Emilia Morelli, told me that I was “far too bright to become a historian” and suggested that I should get into archival studies under the mentorship of Drs. Leopoldo Sandri, Arnaldo D’Addario, and Elio Lodolini. I was used to respecting authority, thus, I followed her strong suggestion. It worked for me.

My degrees are:

• • Dottore (Master’s equivalent), Lettere (Arts) 1973
  • Università di Roma, Italy
  • Thesis title: I Ministeri Menabrea
• • Archivista-Paleografo (PhD equivalent) 1975
  • Scuola Speciale per Archivisti e Bibliotecari
  • Università di Roma, Italy
  • Thesis title: L’amministrazione archivistica danese
• • Diploma di Archivistica, Paleografia e Diplomatica (Master’s equivalent) 1979
  • Scuola dell’Archivio di Stato di Roma, Italy
  • This two-year degree is a legal requirement for all Italian archivists who hold public positions, and it must be fulfilled within five years from appointment. It is a typical archival program (typical for Italy, as it includes paleography and diplomatics, chronology and heraldry, history of law and administration, etc.), but taught in relation to the jurisdiction in which the newly employed archivist works. There are 17 such programs in Italy, one for each pre-unification state. As I was hired in the jurisdiction of the ex-Papal State, I had to study the context and the nature of the records created and/or preserved by such state from the 7th to the 19th century (records subsequent to the unification of Italy are preserved in the Archivio centrale dello Stato, also in Rome, which is the Italian national archives). These programs are administered by and located in the State Archives (State Archives means public archives in Italy, not national archives—there is one State Archives for each Italian province) of each jurisdiction, but they are considered university-equivalent degrees. They are also accessible to external students.
• • BA, Langue Française 1979
  • Ecole Internationale de Langue et Civilization Française, Rome, Italy