Provincia di Perugia
Perugia joins parish books to tribunal copies
Umbria did something no other Italian territory did. In 1860, as papal rule ended, Pepoli's decree requisitioned the parish registers into the communal civil-status offices — so for much of the nineteenth century the parish books were the civil registration, and many of them are now held publicly rather than by the church. At Perugia that means parish registers from 1522, held in the Comune fond, alongside the tribunal's civil series for 1860-2000. Four and a half centuries, in two fonds.
Explore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di Perugia
Civil registers were kept by the comune, not the province. If one of these is your family's, start there.
Where the records are
What Archivio di Stato di Perugia holds
Two fonds matter most, and they come from different institutions.
The Comune di Perugia fond holds Registri parrocchiali di Perugia, 1522-1863 — parish registers requisitioned into communal custody under the Pepoli decree — together with Napoleonic correspondence, 1809-1815. A publicly held run of named-family records beginning in 1522 is among the deepest available anywhere in this collection, and it exists because of a political act rather than an archival one.
The Tribunale di Perugia fond holds the stato civile of the Circondario di Perugia: births, marriage publications, marriages, deaths and citizenship, 1860-2000. Note that it is the circondario, not the province, and that the citizenship series and the marriage publications are listed separately from the marriage acts.
Four sections extend the archive's reach: Assisi, Foligno, Gubbio and Spoleto, each holding material for its own district. For a family from a small comune the relevant seat is frequently one of these rather than Perugia itself. Assisi is the recorded exception to the requisition: its parish registers went back to the Curia rather than remaining in communal custody, so an Assisi search runs through the diocese.
Because Terni province was created only in 1927, southern Umbrian material may be catalogued under Perugia or Spoleto.
Digitisation is recorded as Parziale, so what is not online is not thereby absent.
Continue your research
The Pepoli decree of 1860 moved parish registers into communal custody. Ask the comune, not only the curia.
Archivio di Stato di Perugia on Antenati
The archive's own statement of its fonds and its four sections.
antenati.cultura.gov.itPortale Antenati archive directory
Every participating State Archive and what each says it holds.
antenati.cultura.gov.itAn archive record and an online family tree will often disagree. Why family trees disagree, and what settles it →
Your roots
The first question here is who holds it
In most Italian provinces the question is what survives. In Umbria it is who has it, because the Pepoli decree of 1860 moved a great deal of parish material into communal hands as papal rule ended.
At Perugia the consequence is two distinct fonds. The Comune di Perugia fond holds Registri parrocchiali di Perugia, 1522-1863 — parish registers of baptism, marriage and burial, requisitioned and kept publicly — together with Napoleonic correspondence for 1809-1815. The Tribunale di Perugia fond holds the stato civile of the Circondario di Perugia: births, marriage publications, marriages, deaths and citizenship, 1860-2000.
The join is at 1860-1863, where the two briefly overlap. Before that, the parish register is the record. After it, the civil series is.
Note also that Umbria joined the Kingdom of Sardinia by plebiscite in 1860, not in 1866 — so Italian civil registration here begins earlier than in the Veneto or the papal remainder, and some comuni's first civil acts date from the early 1860s.
The province
Papal Umbria, and a decree that moved the registers
The Province of Perugia documents the Decreto Pepoli of 15 December 1860, which established the Province of Umbria with Perugia among its principal districts — the institutional predecessor of today's province.
For centuries before that, this was the Papal States. Perugia, Spoleto, Foligno, Città di Castello and Gubbio each had their own long civic history, and the papal administration ran through delegations rather than a single provincial government. Ecclesiastical institutions, not civil ones, registered birth, marriage and death.
Papal rule here ended violently. In 1859 the city rose and was subdued by Swiss troops in the episode remembered as the stragi di Perugia; in September 1860 Piedmontese forces entered Umbria and a plebiscite carried it into the Kingdom of Sardinia. Gioacchino Napoleone Pepoli was appointed extraordinary commissioner, and on 31 October 1860 issued the decree requisitioning parish registers into communal civil-status offices — the act that explains why an Umbrian family's oldest continuous record is so often in a town hall rather than a curia.
The modern two-province map is much younger. Terni province was created in 1927, separating southern territory from Perugia, so nineteenth-century material for southern Umbrian comuni may be catalogued under Perugia or under Spoleto rather than under Terni.
Perugia's archive also keeps sections at Assisi, Foligno, Gubbio and Spoleto — and Assisi is the documented exception where parish registers went back to the Curia rather than staying in communal custody.
Culture & traditions
Hill towns that were never interchangeable
Umbria is treated as a compact cultural unit and is not one. Perugia, Spoleto, Foligno, Gubbio, Città di Castello and Assisi developed separate civic and ecclesiastical networks, and dialect shifts from Tuscan-influenced speech in the north-west toward forms closer to Lazio and the Marche in the south and east.
Sharecropping — the mezzadria — shaped rural families more than anything else. It moved households among farms without taking them far, so apparent mobility in the records often conceals real stability within one parish cluster. A family that appears at four addresses in fifty years may never have left a five-kilometre circle.
That makes the parish the stable unit rather than the comune. Many small comuni contain several frazioni whose residents used different churches, and the church a family kept is frequently the sharpest indicator of which hamlet they came from.
Assisi and the Franciscan landscape, and the pilgrimage traffic that goes with it, cut across all of this and should not be read as evidence of origin — people came to Assisi from everywhere.
Gubbio has its Corsa dei Ceri every 15 May; Perugia its Etruscan gate and its confectionery trade; Deruta its majolica, documented from the fourteenth century; Norcia its butchery, whose name became the Italian word for the trade.
Where surnames repeat heavily across neighbouring towns, witnesses and occupations are usually what separate two households of the same name.
Province established
1860
Comuni covered
59
Historic names
Stato Pontificio · Delegazione di Perugia · Delegazione di Spoleto · Circondario di Perugia · Provincia dell'Umbria (1860)
Languages & dialects
Italian · Perugino · Tuscan-influenced varieties in the north-west · Lazial and Marchigian influence to the south and east
Traditions
the Corsa dei Ceri at Gubbio · Deruta majolica · Norcia butchery · mezzadria and the parish cluster · the Pepoli requisition of 1860
The Province of Perugia documents the Decreto Pepoli of 15 December 1860 establishing the Province of Umbria, with Perugia among its principal districts; this is the institutional predecessor of today's province.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Perugia
Ask first who holds the record, not whether it exists. For anything before 1860 in the city, the answer is likely the requisitioned parish registers in the Comune fond — and they reach back to 1522.
For a comune outside the city, establish which section serves it: Assisi, Foligno, Gubbio or Spoleto. For Assisi in particular, expect the diocese rather than the comune, because its registers were returned to the Curia.
If the comune is now in Terni, check here anyway for anything before 1927.
Where a family moved repeatedly under mezzadria, track the parish rather than the address. Write ahead naming the comune, the parish if you know it, and the period.
What to see
Perugia — the Etruscan arch, the Rocca Paolina and the civic centre of papal Umbria.
Assisi — the Franciscan basilicas, and the one place whose registers went back to the Curia.
Gubbio — the Corsa dei Ceri each 15 May, and the Eugubine Tables.
Spoleto and Foligno — district seats with sections of the archive.
Deruta — majolica documented from the fourteenth century.
Norcia and the Valnerina — butchery, the Sibillini, and the upland valleys.
Not yet in the collection
Want to see Provincia di Perugia represented?
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