The aim of the course is to enable students to acquire specific knowledge regarding the varying roles played by archives from antiquity to the contemporary era, as well as the ways in which they have been utilized as the political, legal, social, and cultural contexts surrounding the production of written records have changed. Specifically, particular attention will be given to how the forms and structure of archives have changed over time and how the methods of preserving and transmitting documentary collections have evolved. The focus will also be on the changing nature of the entities responsible for safeguarding archives and the role assigned to them within the structures of power and, more generally, within the society they represented.