National Diary Archive Foundation
Little museum of the diary

The Archivio Diaristico Nazionale Foundation was established in 1991 in Pieve Santo Stefano, on the initiative of the municipality and the journalist and writer Saverio Tutino, who had already founded the Archive in 1984 as a “home for the stories of ordinary people.”

From the very beginning, the goal has been to collect and promote personal memories, turning them into a collective narrative of Italian history.

Today, the Foundation includes the Archive, a specialized library, and the Little Museum of the Diary.

On the shelves of the Archive, more than 10,600 unpublished autobiographical testimonies are preserved — diaries, letters, memoirs, and autobiographies that span centuries of everyday life, wars, migrations, and social changes.

Among the most notable manuscripts is the “Lenzuolo” (“Sheet”) by Clelia Marchi, a fabric on which a Lombard farm woman wrote the story of her life.

In 2009, the Ministry of Culture recognized the Archive as a cultural asset of exceptional historical and anthropological value.

Today, the Foundation is a laboratory of research and creativity, an international reference point for the study and use of autobiographical sources in historical, anthropological, and artistic research.

With the Impronte Digitali (“Digital Footprints”) project, a growing part of the collection is accessible online through platforms such as www.idiariraccontano.org and www.idiaridipieve.it, fostering participation and remote collaboration.