Created in 1955 and constantly expanded, the microfilm library consists of over 2,000,000 frames and thus brings together easily consultable documents concerning Venice but held outside the city, at times for original material occupying long shelving of entire archive storerooms. The microfilm library is thus an almost obligatory stop for anyone having studied in the Venetian State Archives at the Frari (where Venetian government documents are found along with documents sent directly to it), and who wants to consult further sources with different "voices" and so obtain a more complete picture of Venice's relations with other states, mostly by reading the information and opinions of accredited diplomats. In fact, in addition to the microfilms of individual documents and manuscripts of direct or indirect Venetian interest in Italian and foreign libraries and archives, the microfilm library has microfilms of entire diplomatic series: dispatches from ambassadors of the courts of Este, France, Genoa, England, Savoy, Sforza, Medici, Parma, the Holy See, and the Holy Roman Empire. A distinctive feature of the history of the capital city is, in fact, its relations with the other states and especially with the Holy See or the Papal States. The dispatches sent by Venetian ambassadors to the Venetian Senate from Rome can be consulted in the Venetian State Archives at the Frari, but the letters of the Papal Nuncios from the Serenissima, sent from Venice to Rome, are in the Vatican Secret Archives. Fortunately, they can also be consulted on microfilm in the Institute for the History of the Venetian State and Society. There are cases of individual manuscripts conceived and written in Venice but, for some reason, ended up elsewhere. In fact, there are 323 such documents: for example, the letters of the Venetian Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo to the Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo III, all available in the original at the National Library in Florence or, on microfilm, in the Institute of History. In the case, of Marco Barbaro's Genealogie venete, the most reliable manuscript is in the Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek Vienna, but the microfilm of it can also be consulted at the Institute.

Consultation: microfilms can be consulted by appointment to be arranged at the office of the Institute for the History of the Venetian State and Society:
tel. +39 041 2710227
e-mail storia@cini.it
Open from 9 am to 4.30 pm