Documentation of a scientific nature constitutes a large part of Italy’s archival heritage. It includes materials from the medieval and early modern ages as well as materials from the pre-unification and post-unification periods referring to the role that the scientific and technical community played in the construction of national identity and the unified state.

The National Academy of Sciences brings together more than 30 years of census, study and research on this documentation in the Science Archives Portal created in collaboration with the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan and the Central Institute for Archives (ICAR).

The Portal makes it possible to locate more than 1,500 fonds of scientific research institutions and personal papers of scientists, preserved in more than 200 conservatorship institutions throughout Italy; read thematic paths and in-depth studies on people and institutions that have made the history of science in Italy; consult a rich selection of bibliographic resources, curated by the Museo Galileo in Florence, which offers further material for thought and research; confront good archival practices that help raise awareness among scientific communities and individual researchers in safeguarding their own records and those produced by the public or private organization to which they belong; propose the inclusion of their own archival holdings or in-depth studies for publication.