Indici Copialettere

Rubrica


Before the widespread adoption of the carbon paper and mechanical typewriter, copies of day-to-day business correspondence were normally transferred by pressure in pre-bound copialettere (copybooks), stamped on the last page and registered with the Tribunale di Commercio (Court of Commerce) for their potential utility in case of legal dispute. Casa Ricordi continued this practice well into the 1960s. Apart from a few interruptions between 1944 and 1953, the collection of no less than 1209 copybooks in the Archivio Storico Ricordi is substantially complete from 1888 to 1962. The staff facilitated their consultation with a series of chronological indices listing the various addressees in alphabetical order, followed by the volume and page number in which each letter appears. We make available here the 73 surviving indices, included 15 indices pertaining to the period 1831-1887, for which the copybooks for all but one semester of 1831 are now lost.


Starting in 1888, the indices list the addressees’ names, followed by volume and page number in which each letter appears. The example at the right-hand side means that there are letters sent to Verdi copied at vol. 1 p. 168, vol. 2 p. 420, vol. 3 p. 452, and so on. To consult the copybooks please send an email to archivio@archivioricordi.com, listing the requested semester or year [ex.: 1896-1897 or 1956] and volumes [ex: nos. 3,5,12,22, etc.]. For 1831, the archive holds only one copybook, pertaining to the period July-December. For the years 1836, 1849, 1865, 1867, 1868, 1873-74, 1874-75, 1875-76, 1878-79, 1879-80, 1880-81, 1884-85, 1885-86, only the indices survive, while the copybooks are lost. We make them nevertheless available, to allow the users at least to know the list of addressees of any given year.




ANNATE/SEMESTRI



1873-1874
1874-1875
1875-1876
1878-1879
1879-1880
1880-1881
1884-1885
1885-1886
1887-1888
1888-1889
1889-1890
1890-1891
1891-1892
1892-1893
1893-1894
1894-1895
1896-1897
1897-1898
1899-1900
1900-1901
1901-1902
1902-1903
1903-1904
1904-1905
1905-1906
1906-1907
1907-1908
1908-1909
1909-1910
1910-1911
1911-1912
1912-1913
1913-1914
1914-1915
1915-1916
1916-1917
1917-1918
1918-1919
1919-1920
1920-1921
1921-1922
1922-1923
1923-1924
1924-1925
1925-1926
1926-1927
1927-1928
1928-1929
1929-1930
1930-1931
1931-1932
1932-1933
1933-1934
1934-1935
1935-1936
1936-1937
1937-1938
1938-1939
1939-1940
1940-1941
1941-1942
1942-1943
1943-1944