Historic Archive of the Family Verga

The significant private archive of the family is still securely kept at "Palazzo Verga" and it is composed of numerous dossiers containing deeds produced by the family Verga throughout the centuries. The documents comprise a space in time from about 1800 until about 1950 and the most consistent part of the archive is the one correlated to the economic activity of the business "Impresa Giulio Verga".

The archive of the Family Verga represents a precious deposit of documents as a part history from the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, and more precisely for the period characterized by the private land owners. Indeed, the archive documents pass from the evolution of the privately owned land - proprieties and the private owners themselves, to the big infrastructural projects of the modernization and the effects of the Fascism and the Second World War, until reaching the agricultural reform occurring in the middle of the last century. However, it would be restrictive to limit the contents of the archive only to mere family matters as one would not take in consideration all the important social relations various members of the Verga's family had with the territory meanwhile occupying institutional roles and, thus, having been involved in political episodes.

Also, those responsible for the Ministry of the Fine Arts for Archivist in Calabria, with an appropriate declaration, have recognised the considerable historic interest of the private archive of the Family Verga, as it represents an expression of a local reality from various viewpoints and more precisely for the following reasons: the complex history related to the land-proprieties in Calabria connected also to the life conditions and to the deep political and institutional transformations to be observed from the nineteenth century on at Cotronei and in the neighbourhood; the conditions and the persistence of the private land proprieties and the the community collaboration of the areas of the Sila (region of the mountains) which are inseparably correlated to the construction of the hydroelectric system collocated in the area of the Sila and at "Timpagrande"; the very important socio - political, broad economic - financial roles the family Verga expressed from the nineteenth century on by serving several times in public assignments as mayor or province councillor and also by being related to various noble or aristocratic  families or to families that had a relevant role in the social panorama of Calabria; the significant increase and expansion of the land -  proprieties by the family Verga during the nineteenth century due to direct acquisitions and also to an attentive matrimonial politic; the system of associations, societies, consortiums, banks and other economic institutions in the territory of Crotone.

Therefore, the historic archive of the Family Verga represents a very important testimony for the family itself, for the village of Cotronei and also for the historic events related to the entire territory of the Sila and to the "Marchesato Crotonese" in general. Consequently, as with every historic occurance, it forms an element of a complex structure in which the multiplicity of the historical, economic  and social relations are to be shared and described in a appropriate way.

The historic private archive of the Family Verga soon will be at the qualified researcher's disposal for their studies.