The State Archives of Verbania, a peripheral office of the italian Ministry of Culture, was established with Ministerial Decree 27 March 1972 as a section of the State Archives of Novara for the preservation of documentation produced by state offices present in the Alto Novarese area.
After the establishment of the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, it became autonomous with Ministerial Decree 24 May 1997.
The Archives is located in a building with a large portico, with a vaulted ceiling and eight granite columns, running around a garden.
This was built from 1786 to house schools and after the post-napoleonic restoration the gymnasium
was established there. Around 1860, other buildings were identified for school use and the building was raised by the third floor and renovated to house the Court, the Magistrates’ Court and, for a short period, the Assize Court.
In 1970, after the transfer to the new headquarters of the judicial offices, the building underwent new renovations to adapt it to house the State Archives section, which became operational in 1976.
Currently, the the archives has nine storage rooms on three floors, five rooms used as offices, a study room and a large room for exhibitions and conferences.
The tasks of the institute are essentially those of protection, conservation and enhancement of documentation. This is carried out through:
• surveillance on developing archives of State bodies;
• acquisition, in the form of purchase, deposit or donation, of documentation of historical interest from state offices, public bodies and private individuals;
• the reorganization of the archives and the development of the related research tools (inventories, indexes, consistency lists, databases);
• the restoration of documents and the maintenance and functional adaptation of the Archives;
• educational initiatives aimed at schools and promotional initiatives aimed at promoting the valorization of documents, also in collaboration with other cultural institutions.
The State Archives of Verbania offers the public the following services:
• free access to the public in the study room for the performance of historical and administrative research with the support of technical-scientific advice provided by the institute’s staff;
• the paid reproduction of documents by scanner or camera carried out by the institute’s staff;
• the performance of remote research, for administrative and study purposes, via e-mail;
• educational visits by reservation, aimed at presenting the documentation as a historical source, and short research courses to introduce students to archival research;