The Municipal Archive has been the depository of the historical testimony of the most diverse historical, social, religious, economic, literary and cultural manifestations of Valencia. A legacy that has increased over time and that has required a change of location on more than one occasion, to adapt the archive to the social and political conditions and, above all, to the space needs that were needed.
The archive is located in the “San Juan de Ribera” barracks (south); on the banks of the River Turia, in the area that the City Council of Valencia has called “river of culture”, corner of the Paseo de la Alameda, in buildings from 1903 and that were inaugurated for the Kingdom Fair. It has three tanks that occupy an area of 764 m2, with 7,150 linear meters of documentation.
It preserves 28,582 notarial protocols from the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries, corresponding to 2,481 notaries, by donation of the heirs of Mr. María Tortosa Tudela, perpetual schoolboy of the house, who had acquired them in a compilation work begun in 1803.
This is a particular case, as it is an archive originally privately owned. It consists of 660 notarial protocols from 1436 to 1775. By order nº 2435 of the D.O.G.V. of 20 February 1995, it becomes dependent on the General Inventory of Personal Assets of Spanish Historical Heritage, to avoid possible disintegration.
The Archive was founded in the mid-eleventh century. During the Civil War of 1936, and after the assault on the cathedral, the Archive was installed in the College of the Patriarch (Corpus Christi) of this city, where it could be saved almost entirely, with the exception of about 700 bundles. Ordered by Canon Chabás since 1686, it contains 6,000 bundles and 8,500 scrolls.
It has the distinction of being the only one that was saved entirely in the Civil War, when the temple was occupied by a political committee. It reflects the situation of parish archival collections prior to the looting and destruction of 1936.
Located in the old psychiatric hospital on Jesus Street. It preserves under the headings of Acts, Works, etc., the documentation related to construction activities undertaken by the Provincial Council in the Valencian area, together with a scarce collection of notarial protocols of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The mission of the Historical Archive of the Valencian Community is to collect, conserve and dispose for use of the documentary collections of the Generalitat Valenciana, whatever their support and form of presentation.
This collection includes: 200,000 photographic documents (positive and negative), 30,000 old postcards, more than 9,000 posters, and a thousand prints. This Department has been acquiring shape through the incorporation of relevant collections. At the same time, documents of special interest have been acquired on time.
For several years, the Diocesan Archive of Valencia has been providing researchers with access to the study of its collections. Following ecclesiastical legislation, it wants to be open and accessible to the public.
And despite the loss of its rich documentary heritage in 1936-39, which destroyed part of what was generated for more than seven centuries, what could be saved is already catalogued and ready for study in the Consultation Room of this Diocesan Archive.
The Diocesan Archive of Valencia has the peculiarity, for the reasons indicated above, that most of its sections are from after 1939, so the documents still preserve administrative scope and are not available for historical research.
The respective historical collections of the parish archives are part of the “Historical Collection“, transferred to the Diocesan Archive and preserved here as a deposit (the property continues to belong to the parishes). All of them are photodigitized and, also gradually, available to the researcher in the network. Also online the scholar can consult the different historical collections of the parish archives that, for various reasons, have not yet been transferred to the Diocesan Archive.
Cathedral Archive
From the Sacristy, a staircase provides access to the Cathedral Library Archive, which occupies two floors above the Old Sacristy and the current Chapterhouse.
It contains the archive, binders, scrolls, papal bulls, royal and notarial documents, cathedral constitutions, chapter deliberations, letters and offices.
It is housed in the Museum of Fine Arts of St. Pius V, and was formerly part of the funds of the BB Academy. AA. of San Carlos, located in the Convent of Carmen. The collections of drawings, prints and sketches are extraordinarily important, comprising nearly 20,000 works.
All the documentation of the Kingdom of Valencia is preserved, together with numerous notarial protocols from 1295 to 1852, 15,786 books.
