The private archive: management tool and device of self-representation. Some reflections from Tasca d’Almerita’s papers

Abstract

The article explores the role of private archives through the case study of the Tasca d’Almerita papers. It focuses, specifically, on how these archives can be used for mythopoetic and identity-building purposes, both familial and entrepreneurial. At the center, there is Giuseppe Mastrogiovanni Tasca’s operation of remodeling and organizing the Tasca d’Almerita archives, an aristocratic Sicilian family dedicated to wine production for generations, emphasizing how his work at the same time responds to needs of management and self-representation. The contribution, therefore, aims to highlight the importance of archives also as narrative devices, considering the implications of the ex post selection and organization of archives by the producers themselves, archivists of themselves.

Keywords

• private archives
• tasca d’almerita
• self-representation
• memory construction
• company archives