Maybe not everyone knows it, but below City of Vatican The official archive of the Holy See is located, a bunker inside which some of the most important paper documents of theVatican Apostolic Archive. More specifically, these are two rooms made of reinforced concrete with a capacity of 31 thousand cubic meters and made below the Pigna courtyard of the Vatican Museums. The work was commissioned by Pope Paul VI and the October 18, 1980 from John Paul II. As anticipated, therefore, it is a deposit of value documents rather than an anti-atomic refuge.
From a technical point of view, the bunker is made up of two rooms made of reinforced concrete and with an overall capacity of 31 thousand m3. Inside they were installed overall 43 km of shelvingboth fixed and rotating, so as to optimize the use of space. To make sure that the conditions of temperature And humidity remain constant over time, a system was also installed thermovecentilation ad hocalso accompanied by a fire-fighting, emergency lighting and looking-out.
But the Vatican Archive is not limited to bunker: for example there are two air -conditioned rooms only for the parchments which are lying and kept in special paper wraps. Among these, noteworthy are the 81 parchments with gold seal kept in a special sector.
