Metadata: Notaries. Documents and Rubrics of Notaries
Collection
- Country:
- Italy
- Holding institution:
- State Archive of Milan
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archivio di Stato di Milano
- Postal address:
- via Senato 10, 20121 Milano
- Phone number:
- +39 027742161
- Web address:
- http://www.archiviodistatomilano.beniculturali.it/
- Email:
- as-mi@beniculturali.it
- Reference number:
- Notarile. Atti e Rubriche dei Notai . Volumes 2157; 19415-19419; 17584-17586; rep. 54
- Title:
- Notaries. Documents and Rubrics of Notaries
- Title (official language):
- Notarile. Atti e Rubriche dei Notai
- Creator/accumulator:
- Notarial archive of Milan
- Date(s):
- 1209-1899
- Date note:
- Jewish-related material dates from 1467-1595; 1800
- Language:
- Italian
- Extent:
- 50,756 volumes
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The series Acts of Notaries consists of 50,756 volumes that collect the deeds, indexes and repertoires of notaries who had worked in Milan and the Duchy (with the exception of Lodi, Cremona, Como, Pavia and partly Varese) from 1209. The series of Indexes (“Rubriche”) is the only tool that accompanies the documents. These are 5,054 annual registers which show, for each notary, in alphabetical order, the name and surname of the stakeholders, the date, the type of deed and the reference to the number and page of the volume in which the deed was recorded.
As the number of documents is huge it cannot be tackled in a project this size. Based on the available bibliography (the reference is above all to the monumental edition of these documents: The Jews in the duchy of Milan / edited with introduction and notes by Shlomo Simonsohn. - Jerusalem: The Israel academy of sciences and humanities, and the essays of Anna Antoniazzi Villa and Renata Segre), we examined the “rubriche” of the notaries Materno Figino son of the late Pietro (active between 1462 and 1506), Annibale Taegi son of the late Giovanni Giacomo, Emanuele Pisani son of the late Martino (active between 1569 and 1615), Pompeo Bevilacqua son of Lancellotto (active between 1565 and 1624); Lancellotto Bevilacqua son of the late Giovanni Andrea (active between 1522 and 1585) and Francesco Belloli (active between 1796 and 1843).
Materno Figino (rubrica 2137) is the notary with the oldest rogatory activity. The index of his documents contains references to documents with Jewish parties only under the heading "Jews" and gives no surname or patronymic, nor is a place of residence specified, so that it is difficult to identify individuals from the register alone. In any case, in 44 years of activity only 10 acts were recorded between 1467 and 1471, attributed to: Giuseppe son of the late Manasse; Grassino of Grandate; Mosè son of the late Abramo (2 documents); Angelo son of the late Giuseppe; Guglielmo son of the late Daniele, Guglielmo son of the late Angelino, Guglielmo son of the late Samuele (2 documents). There are also two files of the same notary, one of 19 June 1488 (bundle 1935) and the other of 10 April 1490 (bundle 2157) published and extensively studied by Anna Antoniazzi Villa in the essay “Un processo contro gli ebrei nella Milano del 1488” (A trial against Jews in the Milan of 1488), Bologna: Cappelli, 1988. These documents contain details of a lawsuit filed by the Duke of Milan Gian Galeazzo Sforza against about forty Jews residing in his domains (none resident of Milan), accused by a convert of using books offensive to the Christian religion.Nine of them were sentenced to death, while the others were expelled from the Duchy, but not before all their properties were seized. In reality the story probably came to an end with the payment of a large sum of money and the destruction of the volumes.
Anna Antoniazzi Villa, in her essay “Di un falso matrimonio. Note di vita ebraica nella Lombardia quattrocentesca” (Of a false marriage. Notes of Jewish life in fifteenth-century Lombardy, in Studi di Storia medievale e di diplomatica, No. 9, 1987, pp. 165-195) published one of the files of notary Giacomo Carpani, no. 2252, of 22 October 1481. It is an arbitration between Copino, a Jew from Pavia, agent also in the name of Vita and of the daughter Dolce, and Elia Segre, a Jew from Fregarollo, of the diocese of Alessandria, also acting on behalf of his son Raffaele and son-in-law Simone, concerning the marriage between Dolce and Simone. In the document and in the annexes reference is made to rabbinical decisions, considered to be binding on the subject and which were confirmed with a civil act.
Annibale Taegi, son of the late Giovanni Giacomo (rubrica 4607) is the notary with the largest documentation of Jewish content. He was a notary in Milan from 1578 to 1603 and about seventy documents from between 1579 and 1599 were traced in the index of his deeds in which one of the parties declares to be a Jew. In this case too the brief summary of the file does not inform us about the residence of the single subjects. In it often recur the names of Rafael Carmini, Lazzaro de Levi, Leon Pontremoli, Vitale Sacerdote and his son Simone, Clemente Pavia di Lodi, all prominent figures of the Jewish University of the State of Milan, who played important roles in the various renewals of the agreements concerning Jews (the “condotte”) and in the management of the period prior to the expulsion. In particular, Vitale Sacerdote, of Alessandria, but often resident in Milan on business, was sent to Madrid at the court of Philip II in 1595, to treat the renewal of the “condotta” and the possibility of cancelling or postponing the expulsion; together with his son Simone, Clemente Pavia, Consiglio Carmini and Isacco Levi, he was then exempted from leaving the state in June 1597 to finalise the collection of all the credits still claimed by the Jews from the State and private individuals.
About a third of the documents are "Confessio", i.e. acts in which a person "confesses" to having received sums of money from another person, in the presence of a notary. In addition to the payments made to the conservators for the renewal of the condotta, the documents drawn up mostly by Leon son of the late Simone Pontremoli, agent on behalf of Rafael Carmini and Lazzaro de Levi, representatives of the University of the Jews of the State of Milan, are of considerable interest. Between 1585 and 1592 (at least), he took care of the rental of houses, first at the parish of San Giovanni in Laterano and then at San Nazzaro in Brolio, which were to serve as "Hospizio", i.e. as inn for all Jews who had to go on business to Milan for very short periods (from three to twenty days).
It is also worth mentioning a document dated 20 November 1595 (which was not recorded in the Index) with which the Count Celio Mozanica, son of the late Paolo, from Turano Lodigiana, but living in Milan, having learned that the Jew Clemente Pavia son of the late Simone di Lodi and his brothers had invented "buildings to raise water" and having heard of a grida from the Secret Council that established that no one could use this project without authorisation, he asked for and obtained permission to build such buildings, agreeing to pay a license after the test of the machine.To this end, Carmini also delivered some models in the presence of the notary. Attached to the act are also a copy of the printing privilege of 27 October 1595 and instructions for building the machine.
The rubrica of notary Emanuele Pisani son of the late Martino reports 23 documents with a Jewish party, across 46 years of activity, all concentrated in the years between 1574 and 1588. In this case too the most frequent names are those of Rafael Carmini, Lazzaro de Levi and Leon Pontremoli, temporarily residing in Milan for the signing of the proceedings. The same observations can be made for the other two Bevilacqua notaries.
Finally, we examined the rubrica of the notary Francesco Maria Belloli, a notary in Milan between 1796 and 1843, during the period in which the Jews returned to Milan in conjunction with a general movement of the population towards the big cities. Reliable evidence of a Jewish presence dates back to 1801, although it is not yet possible to speak of a structured community. Only in 1866 will a voluntary association called Consorzio Israelitico di Milano be established.
Among the first Jews to settle in Milan, after the expulsion of 1597, there is the merchant of jewels, gold and silver, Moise son of the late Benedetto Formiggini of Modena, representative of the people in the Napoleonic Cisalpine Republic and member of the Council of Lyon, as well as representative of the Jews of the Department of the Olona to the assembly of the Israelites of France and of the Kingdom of Italy summoned in Paris by Napoleon in May 1806. Subsequently he also became a member of the Grand Sanhedrin of Paris, which was held in the spring of 1807, during which the civil rights of Jewish citizens were discussed. He was a member of the College of Merchants, collaborating in the compilation of the new Commercial Code. He died in Milan in 1809.
Among the documents of the notary Belloli is the document no. 54, dated 20 January 1800, proving the ratification of the heritage divisions made by Moise, Vitta, Luigi Raffaele and Salomone (through his attorney Carlo Carcano), all of them Formiggini brothers, between 1777 and 1791, with a remarkable series of attached documents, including two inventories of the home goods of the Formiggini family. On 30 October 1800, in a deed drawn up by the Milanese notary Francesco Franzini), Rafael Luigi Formiggini sold his part in the family company called "Benedetto Formiggini and sons" to his brothers Moise and Salomon, which was then established in two locations: one in Milan, directed by Moise Formiggini and the other in Modena under the direction of his brother Salomon. The same document also covers the transfer by Luigi Raffaele to his brothers of the twelfth part of the Schola Formiggini of Modena, i.e. the family oratory, founded in 1675 by Elia di Pellegrino, which will remain a common heritage among the heirs up to 1905, the year in which it was definitively sold to the Jewish Community of Modena.
- Archival history:
-
The law of 1875, included in the Regulation of 1911, established that the archives of the central magistracies of pre-unification states should form, within the individual Archives, the section of State Acts. The other fonds had to be divided into three more sections, namely Judicial Documents, Administrative Documents, Notarial Deeds. All the remaining archives should form special sections.
Until 1963 the fonds of the State Archives of Milan were then assigned to the various sections, which changed over time [among them we point out the Historical-diplomatic, the Administrative and Financial, the Judiciary, the Military, the Confidential archive; in 1919, after the management of Luigi Fumi, sections of State Acts and Administrative Acts, Judicial Proceedings, Archives of the reigns of the Visconti and Sforza, Religion fonds and collections; in 1950 the First sections (State Acts i.e. Peronian Government Acts), Second (Administrative Acts), Third (Judicial Acts), Fourth (Special Collections), Fifth (Purchases, Gifts, Transfers)].
Following the loss of a large quantity of documents, series and entire fonds during the Second World War and with the transfer of new large archives, including the Notarial Archive and the Cadastral Archive, the fonds were reorganised.
The General Guide to the State Archives describes the fonds of the AS MI in the 1980s, grouping them, where possible, according to the historical period (Ancien Régimes, Napoleonic, Restoration, Post-unitary). The Acts of Government fonds (15th-19th century) could be inserted in any of these historical periods, for its peculiar characteristics, and is considered in its own right. The Diplomatic fonds is also presented in its own right, including the Diplomatic Archive (consisting of the fonds with the oldest documentation) and the Historical Section (containing miscellaneous material and collections). The remaining fonds are identified by type or according to the creator body (Fascist archives, Notaries, Cadastres, Pious and Charitable institutions, Religious corporations; Family and individuals' archives, Different archives, Collections and miscellaneous).
In terms of order and arrangement, the archival history of the pre-unification fonds of the AS MI was characterised by the so-called Peronian system, a particular type of organisation by subject implemented in the 18th and 19th centuries by the Milanese archivists, who created the complex of fonds named Government Acts; to the latter were added the documentary aggregations carried out in the 18th and 19th centuries that produced collections and miscellaneous sections.
The documentation arrived in the State Archives in two successive transfers, the first in July-August 1944 and the second in 1953.
See also http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/archivi/soggetti-conservatori/MIAA00017D/
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The notarial archive was established in Milan with a royal letter of Empress Maria Theresa on 22 May 1769 and inaugurated on 1 October 1775. Directed by the archivist Ilario Corte, the institute had the task of preserving public deeds between private individuals, produced by the Office of the Governor of the Statutes, called Panigarola, established in the 13th century, reorganised in 1396, heavily damaged by a fire and inefficient management and definitively abolished in 1787. In the course of its long existence the Office of the Governor of the Statutes had the task of collecting and recording almost all the other acts of the civil authorities as well as the public acts of private individuals, becoming a real Record Office.
Before the creation of the notarial archive, copies of the various deeds (sales, proxies, dowries, wills, post-mortem inventories and others) were kept by individual notaries and their heirs. Following the royal edict of 1 October 1775, the Milanese notarial archive acquired bundles and indexes of notaries from Milan and the Duchy (with the exception of the cities of Como, Cremona, Lodi, Pavia and partly Varese) that had died from 1290 as well as the acts produced by the Office of the Governor of the Statutes, called Panigarola.
The Royal Decree of 25 May 1879, no. 4900, in the post-unification period, established the obligation of the transfer of notarial deeds to the notarial archive upon the death of the single notary or his eventual termination and the obligation for all holders - for various reasons – of parts or entire notarial archives to transfer them to the concerned Notarial Archive. The law of 22 December 1939, no. 2006, finally established the obligation for all Notarial Archives to transfer the deeds of notaries who had practiced before 1 January 1800 to the relevant State Archive. Over the years the State Archives of Milan have constantly received transfers of notaries’ deeds that have increased the fonds’ documentary heritage.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Antoniazzi Villa, Anna
- Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, 1351-1402
- Subject terms:
- Legal records
- System of arrangement:
-
The documentation was organised in various fonds on the basis of the successive transfers, however it can be summarily described as a documentary corpus composed of:
- Acts of Notaries;
- Different indexes of notaries' acts, that is, research tools drawn up by the notarial archive or by the notaries themselves;
- General archive of the notarial archive (1337 - 19th century), ie administrative documents of the notarial archive and documents from the registry offices.
Archives of the College of Notaries and Advocates. Currently the district notarial archives keep notarial deeds for 100 years, after this period they are transferred to the State Archives for definitive conservation (law 629 of 17 May 1952) (http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/archivi/complessi-archivistici/MIBA00EB37/).
- Yerusha Network member:
- Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center - Milan
- Author of the description:
- Rori Mancino; Centro di documentazione ebraica contemporanea; 2018