About

Civic Archives of Bolzano-Bozen
Portici-Lauben 30
I-39100 Bolzano-Bozen

Website: www.comune.bolzano.it/archiviostorico
E-Mail: archiviostorico@comune.bolzano.it

The objectives of this project are to produce a digital edition of Bolzano-Bozen's Town Registers of the premodern era - the so-called ‚Ratsprotokolle' or 'Ratschlagbücher', to disseminate knowledge of this valuable material and to enable further research to be undertaken, as a result of the availability and accessibility of this resource.

Altogether, the digitisation of the Town Registers provides a deep insight into Bolzano-Bozen's life in the past, i. e. into a „world we have lost" (P. Laslett) and its families and classes, communities and power rules.

From the 15th century onwards the town of Bolzano-Bozen was allowed to govern itself by the Habsburgian rulers. Hence, the city government could rely on its own Council, strengthened by a privilege granted by King Frederick III in 1442. The Council was guided by a mayor whose election took place annually. The Town registers of the Council's discussions and advices were registered in book form; today these records lie at the core of what we know about the townspeople's economical, social and political life in the late middle ages and the early modern period. To further widen our knowledge of how this everyday life was like, it is central to make digitally accessible all the records surviving from that period.

(Last revised March 2019)

• Karl Th. Hoeniger, Das älteste Bozner Ratsprotokoll vom Jahre 1469. In: (Bozner) Jahrbuch für Geschichte, Kultur und Kunst, Verlagsanstalt Vogelweider, Bozen-Bolzano 1934, 7-111.
• Bozner Bürgerbuch 1551-1806, I. Teil: Die Bürger- und Inwohneraufnahmen der Handschrift des Bürgerbuches (ed. by Rudolf Marsoner); II. Teil: Ergänzungen der Bürger- und Inwohneraufnahmen aus den Ratschlag-, Rait- und Kopialbüchern der Jahre 1489-1810 ) (ed. by Karl Th. Hoeniger et Josef Blaas); III. Teil: Register (= Bozner Jahrbuch für Geschichte, Kultur und Kunst 1929/1930), Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck 1956.
• Franz Huter, Beiträge zur Bevölkerungsgeschichte Bozens im 16.-18. Jahrhundert (= Bozner Jahrbuch für Geschichte, Kultur und Kunst 1948), Verlagsanstalt Athesia, Bozen-Bolzano 1948.
• Hannes Obermair, Bozen Süd - Bolzano Nord: Schriftlichkeit und urkundliche Überlieferung der Stadt Bozen - Scritturalità e documentazione archivistica della città di Bolzano fino al 1500. Bd. 1: Regesten der kommunalen Bestände - Regesti dei fondi comunali 1210-1400 , Bozen-Bolzano 2005; Bd. 2: Regesten der kommunalen Bestände - Regesti dei fondi comunali 1400-1500 , Bozen-Bolzano 2008.
• Hannes Obermair, The Use of Records in Medieval Towns: The Case of Bolzano, South Tyrol . In: Marco Mostert - Anna Adamska (eds), Writing and the Administration of Medieval Towns: Medieval Urban Literacy I (= Utrecht Studies in Medieval History 27), Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2014.