New York (NY)
History
December 6, 2017
By Erin Blakemore
Fifty-three miles of shelving. Thirty-five thousand volumes of catalogue. Twelve centuries worth of documents. Housed in one of the most iconic bastions of religion and culture ever, the Vatican’s Secret Archives are the stuff of historical legend—but their existence is absolutely real.
Just the name invokes the mystery and pageantry of the Catholic Church, and prompts the more imaginative to come up with sinister theories about what might lie within. The archives’ indexes are not public—and are only accessible to scholars once they are 75 years old—and they are housed in a fortress-like part of the Vatican.
The secretive nature of the Catholic Church and the potential trove within have fueled years of wild speculation about what was inside. Even today, conspiracy theories abound over its contents—like wacky speculation that the Vatican is hiding extraterrestrial beings inside.
In reality, however, the Vatican’s Secret Archives are not actually secret. The word “secret” comes from a misunderstanding of the Latin word “secretum,” or private. The archives were—and still are—designed to house the Holy See’s official paperwork along with correspondence and other information related to the Pope.
They also contain some of the Catholic Church’s most impressive treasures—documents that date back from the eighth century. But, until 1881, not even scholars of Christianity were permitted access to the archive. That’s when Pope Leo XIII, known as an intellectual who confronted the modernization of the late 19th century, opened the trove to researchers. These fascinating documents tell not just the story of the Church, but the rest of the world.
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