Before being appointed Titular of the new Apostolic Nonciature in Ireland (1929-1948), Fr Paschal Robinson ofm (1870-1948) had an intense diplomatic activity on behalf of the Holy See, in particular of the Secretariat of State and the Congregations for the Oriental Church and Propaganda Fide. After his death, Mgr Domenico Tardini, at that time secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, ordered to preserve the documents of his missions as Apostolic Visitator in Palestine and Apostolic Delegate in Malta. Then the documents were deposited in the ASV. The six folders mainly concerns the Apostolic visits to Palestine entrusted to Fr Robinson by the Congregation for the Oriental Church (1925-1928) and the Congregation for Propaganda Fide (1920-1921; 1927-1928).
This inventory includes the transcription (into Arabic and Turkish) and translation into English of the 18 volumes of reports (55% in Ottoman Turkish, 45% in Arabic) from the Ottoman municipality of Jerusalem between 1892 and 1917.
Mgr Testa took over the archive of the Apostolic Delegation after his entry to Jerusalem, on 18 June, 1948. The archive contains 38 folders concerning the administrations of the Apostolic Delegates Gustavo Testa, Arthur Hughes, Silvio Oddi and Giuseppe Sensi. The documentation covers the period 1935-1962. The documentation concerning the government of Mgr Valerio Valeri has been lost in 1948 when the palace of the Apostolic Delegation was destroyed. A well-structured filing plan is available for the government of Testa, Oddi and Sensi. The archive is accessible until 1939.
Apostolic Delegation in Jerusalem and Palestine (DAGP)
This archival fonds contains documents from 1839 to 1935, although some of them date before this period. Most part of the archives of pontifical representations started to arrive to Vatican since the mid Seventies of the 20th century. During the cataloguing, the fonds was divided into “Archivio Antico”; “Archivio mons. Cassulo” e “Archivio mons. Valeri-Mazzoli-Bartoloni-Dini”. The last one is composed by 101 dossiers.
Papers, 1841-1976 relating to the Diocese of Jerusalem and St. George’s Cathedral, missionary activities, chaplaincies, health and education provision in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Iran, the Gulf, Egypt, Sudan, Cyprus and North Africa. The collection also contains correspondence relating to the political situation in Mandatory Palestine. Presscutting volumes. Quarterly newsletter/magazine of the Jerusalem and East Mission, later Jerusalem and Middle East Church Association Bible Lands from 1899. Photographic collection. Language of material: English; a very small amount of Arabic.
Series 146 CCC, Consular and Commercial Correspondence (4 volumes, vols. 2-5, 1842-1901): 578 dispatches.
Series 74 CPC, Political correspondence, Jerusalem (27 volumes 1843-1895) : 2603 dispatches.
Series 206 CPCOM, Political and Commercial Correspondence, known as "New Series") Turkey-Palestine, (vols. 129-138, 10 vols. 1896-1914): 880 dispatches.
Most despatches are typed, and almost always present short analyses (there are, however, overwritten drafts as well as telegraphic despatches without analysis).
The documents sent by the communities of the Ottoman Empire are either in "ancient Hebrew" (pre-modern Hebrew) or "Ladino". There are sometimes letters in French. Only between 10% and 20% of the archives would be written in "Ladino".
The oldest documents are pinkasim from 1750 and 1759, difficult to understand, very damaged in 1948. Many are uncommunicable (circa 1850). There is a gap between 1820 and 1830. There are gaps, the community almost disappeared. After that, for the period 1890-1920 which represents many documents of which a part is a little damaged.
The writings represented are mainly the "half-calamus" or handwritten Sephardic rabbinic script (documents in "ancient" Hebrew = rabbinic and/or in "ladino" = Judeo-Spanish) and the writing called "letras de karta" or "solitreo" in the correspondence in Judeo-Spanish. Much of these documents have been transcribed according to the modern Hebrew ms alphabet.
It should be noted that the Poor Clares are a cloistered and not an apostolic order, so the monastery's interactions with the world are limited. The community has never maintained a school or dispensary: the monastery's archives reflect this life of enclosure.
This record group is supposed to be the documents created by the service of the town clerk during the British Mandate. However, most of the documents have been created between the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1950s. The gap into the records for the first years of the Mandate remains unexplained. This record group mainly consists of correspondence and reports which show the organisation of the Municipality. Moreover, a section of this record group deals with the security of the City during the 1930s and 1940s.
