Charity Papers

Curated by Silvia Lunardon, Giuseppe Ellero and Agata Brusegan
Venice, Campo San Luca, Main Hall, Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia
29 September–28 October 2005

This exhibition, organised in collaboration with Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia, aims at shedding light on I.R.E.’s conspicuous documentary archives. The bank’s support to the Venetian welfare organisation translates into a project for an innovative and digitalised archive of I.R.E.’s historical records and documents, for the preservation of Venice’s millennial welfare history inscribed in the papers of its medieval almshouses and fifteenth-century charitable institutions. I.R.E.’s archive in fact contains the complete records of the Opere Pie. The bank’s support has mainly focused on the earliest archive material – from the Middle Ages to the end of the Republic of Venice – summing up to about fifteen thousand items. Thanks to this digitization process, I.R.E.’s substantial cultural patrimony is now accessible to the community.