The secret archives of the Vatican are undoubtedly at the top of the list of the most mysterious places in the world. There are some of the most important documents in Europe’s history, accessible only to a select group of people – the Pope himself does not have full access to the entire archive.
Archives are known to have been under strict protection and closed until 1881 when certain Catholic scholars were allowed to open the Vatican Museum building. However, there is a condition: the one who wants to consult a certain document needs to know exactly which one is; They are not allowed to search through all the documents at random.
Although several documents have been made public, there are still conspiracy theories that lie on the archives. These theories are also supported by the fact that there is no conclusive proof that the papers presented to people are the most important and representative of the millions there.
Medieval documents
To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the establishment of the archive, the Vatican published one of the most important documents in the history of religions: the papal bubble by which Martin Luther was excommunicated. It dates from 1521 and is the only copy that survived. Another document is a petition of 81 clergy and English lords demanding the annulment of the marriage between King Henry VII and Caterina de Aragon. The document of almost one meter was written in 1530, when the only way a king could divorce was to obtain the annulment from the Catholic Church. Of course, the king was desperate to dissociate himself from Caterina, unable to offer him an heir, and he was in love with Anne Boleyn. However, he did not obtain the approval of the Catholics, so he founded his own Anglican church.
Many of the Vatican’s publications mark important moments in the long-forgotten European history. For example, Queen Maria Stuart’s letter to Pope Sixtus V, written several weeks before it was executed because she planned the murder of Queen Elizabeth I. In the letter, Scotland’s direction is declaring faith in the Catholic Church, and claims that the enemies They lied, involving her in an assassination attempt.
The process of a heresy
Of course, during the Middle Ages, the Church often had more power than the Royal Court. This is how many of the documents are transcripts of processes or other testimonies related to them. One of them is Galileo’s famous process of heresy. In the seventeenth century, Galileo was accused of claiming that the Earth is spinning around the sun. The church was terrified by the scientist’s words that dismantled the religious idea that the Earth is at the center of the universe. According to documents published by the Vatican, Galileo argued that theory was a simple question, not a conviction to his. His plea was not believed, so in 1633, Pope Urban VIII convicted Galileo of heresy.
One of the most exotic documents that the Church has published is the letter of a queen of China dating from 1650. It was written on silk by the Empress Dowager Wang, who after the visit of a Jesuit priest converted to Catholicism. She changed her name to Elena, and her adopted son in Constantin. Going along the line of documents that do not carry a negative cargo like the Galilean process, the Vatican has drawn from the archives the sketch of a flying machine, made by the priest Bartholomew Lourenco of Gusmao. The device, which looks like a giant bird and never finished, was conceived in the sixteenth century. He claimed to be moving on June 24, 1709, but the demonstration never took place.
