Notarial archives as political objects in the early-modern Alps. The community of Valle Camonica

Notarial archives in the early-modern Alpine region were managed according to an extreme variety of styles. This paper presents the case of a community of the central Italian Alps, set at the north-western borders of the Republic of Venice. Focusing on the local response to a law promulgated by the venetian Senate in 1612, notarial archives and their preservation become, in an “institutional perspective”, a political weapon in defending local autonomies against the centripetal force exercised by urban cities.