Here we are in an important place, because this place preserves the historical records produced by the public authorities of the province of Siena and for voluntary deposit, temporary storage, donation or purchase from any other archive or documentary collection of historical importance. Among the richest in Italy, it contains documents ranging from 736 to contemporary times. The collection was established in 1775, starting from the documents of the Republic of Siena and subsequent governments, and here allotted in 1855. The Archive contains about 60,000 parchments, the deliberations and statutes of the Republic, the correspondence and the acts of the judicial, financial, etc.
Some of the most important documents are exhibited in rotation, in exhibitions such as that related to the characters of the Divina Commedia) or the imperial diplomas (since 818).
Among other things, the testaments of the famous writer Giovanni Boccaccio, autographs of Pope Pius II, Cesare Borgia, San Francesco, Caterina de’ Medici, or the correspondence of famous Italian artists.
A lot of documents tell the history of the city, the heretics, the saints, the merchant life, the siege and takeover of the city, the Medici’s nomination and the Palio.
At the state archive of Siena is permantly exhibited the collection of Biccherna Tablets. These Biccherna tablets are, or at least were the covers of the administrative registers of the most important and ancient fnancial magistratura of the Municipality of Siena, precisely called the Biccherna.
The works are exhibted in five rooms, three of which are also used as archives. The second part of the exhibition is the documentary exhibition diveded into two sectors. In the first one documents on various aspects of the Seniense historical story are proposed, for a period that goes from year 735 to the Unity of Italy.
The second sector is consituted by the Dantesque exhibition with documents in which are remembered characters of the Divine Comedy or linked in any case to the great poet, including Giovanni Boccaccio, whose testament is exhibited.
Temporary exhibitions are sometimes held in the rooms of the permanent exhibition, especially during the annual “Cultural Week” of Siena.
