Catherine Ann Lombard, psychosynthesis psychologist and researcher, offers this guide on how to use the Assagioli Archives. This blog is a companion piece to Catherine’s event, on 16th September, demonstrating how to use the Archives in more detail.
The Archives
The Assagioli Archives is a wonderful resource for students, researchers and practitioners interested in the work of Roberto Assagioli, the founder of psychosynthesis.
More than 19,000 documents have been scanned and catalogued by volunteers from Gruppo Alle Fonti (Group at the Wellspring), which is part of the Istituto di Psicosintesi in Florence. The documents include manuscripts, notes and references created by Assagioli.
The archive is both physical and virtual; all the documents catalogued exist today in Casa Assagioli, Assagioli’s former home in Florence. Catherine Ann Lombard outlines how to access the archive database in her own words below. You can read more about the archive contents and history on our blog post, An Introduction to the Assagioli Archives.
A Beginner’s Guide to Assagioli’s Archives by Catherine Ann Lombard
If you are unfamiliar with how Assagioli’s Online Archives work, this is a beginner’s guide to exploring this treasure trove for yourself. This guide gives you the steps you need to enter the world of Assagioli’s Archives. So let’s get started…
Registering with the Archives
1. Go to the website: www.archivioassagioli.org.
A number of interesting things can be viewed without registering. For example, Assagioli’s
biography and a bibliography of all his published work. But to search in the archives, you
have to first register.
2. Click Registration.
3. You register by filling in your email address, name and country. Then enter a password and the language you prefer.
4. Click the Register button.
Exploring the Archives
Once you are registered, the Online Archive will open to the Consulta/Explore tab. You can search in two different areas:
1) Archivio Studio: These files, for the most part, are handwritten notes by Assagioli.
2) Schedario Synthesis: These files, for the most part, are typed manuscripts, many of which have been published.
You can view a list of topics in each of these databases. To see all the available material in any one of these database, click on Elenchi/Lists: Archivio Studio OR Elenchi/Lists: Schedario Synthesis
For example, here is what you see after clicking Elenchi/Lists: Archivio Studio:
You can either go directly to a Faldone/Box OR you can search on a specific topic.
Going Directly to an Archive Box
First we will go directly to a Faldone/Box. Let’s go to the box that contains Assagioli’s notes on Freedom in Jail. By clicking Control F, we can find “Freedom in Jail” in the Archivio Studio.pdf list.
Scrolling up the Archivio Studio.pdf list, we see that Assagioli’s notes on Freedom in Jail are in the Archivio Studio – Psicosintesi / Psychosynthesis – Psicosintesi personale / Personal Psychosynthesis – Faldone / Box 29 – 2.27.1. Now to get there…
- Return to the Consulta/Explore tab in the Archives.
- Click Archivio Studio
- Click Psicosintesi / Psychosynthesis
- Click Psicosintesi personale / Personal Psychosynthesis
- Scroll down and click on Faldone / Box 29 to open the box. You will see all the folders in the box. These boxes and folders correspond to the hardcopies kept in Assagioli’s Archives at Casa Assagioli in Florence.
- Freedom in Jail is in Folder 2.27.1. Libertà in prigione / Freedom in Jail. Click on this folder and a list of all Assagioli’s notes about his time in jail appear with a document name and title. Note that they are not in any particular order. (That is one advantage to buying the actual book.)
Assagioli’s notes have been individually scanned and referenced by volunteers. You can view more more than 6000 scanned documents online in the Archivio Studio alone. Take a moment to send thanks to all those volunteers!
You can click on whatever document you find interesting or you can work your way through the list. To view a document:
1 Click on the document you wish to view. It will appear in a little screen to your right.
2 Click Apri / Open
After clicking on the first document “Freedom in Jail”, a new screen appears with all the information about this particular document. To view the document, click Apri /Open. The following screen will appear.
To zoom in on the document, simply click on it.
The document will appear in a popup window. You can zoom in and out by sliding the widget on top of the popup window. If a document has more than one page, you will see all the scanned pages on the bottom of the popup window. You can then click on each individual page to open it and view it more closely.
Let’s take a look at a document with 8 pages. Here I have opened the document Freedom in Jail – An Incident and “Test” with the Title “A peaceful but intense…”
One of the first things you might notice is that the entire document has been transcribed for you. (Send thanks to the volunteers!) You can also see under the document image that there are 8 images or pages.
If you look right under the Consulta /Explore tab, you can see the entire string that leads to this very document:
AS > Psicosintesi / Psychosynthesis > Psicosintesi personale / Personal Psychosynthesis > Faldone / Box 29 > 2.27.1. Libertà in prigione / Freedom in jail / Freedom in Jail – An incident and “test”
Under this string, you can also see small red arrows. You use these arrows to move through the list of documents in the selected folder. You can move forward or back through the documents, one document at a time. Or you can fast-forward to the end or fast-track backward to the start of the list.
Here is my screen after I clicked on the document and zoomed in.
Next let’s take a quick look at the Search function.
Searching on a Specific Topic
- Click on the Ricerca/Search tab.
- You can search on a single word or a phrase. To search on Freedom in Jail, type it into the field that is next to Frase / Sentence.
- Click Cerca / Search. The results appear below. To view one of the documents:
Click on the boxed-arrow under Apri / Open. You will then be able to view the document.
You can also use the Ricerca avanzata / Advanced Search to search on specific dates, authors, referenced authors, language, and more! Try it out and see for yourself!
Making an Excel Sheet with a List of Documents
You can also download a list of the searched documents into an Excel sheet. To do this:
- Click on Esporta/Export.
- A window will pop up (in Italian) telling you that the download was successful and how many items were exported to the Excel sheet. Click OK.
3. The file will then show up in a box in the left-hand corner of your window. When you open this file in Excel, you see the list of items contained in your search.
Exiting the Archives
To logout at any time, click the Esci/Exit tab.
I hope you enjoyed learning how to explore Assagioli’s archives. Please feel free to support this great service by making a donation of any amount to Archivio Assagioli by clicking the Donazioni / Donate button on the bottom of the Home page!
Download the PDF version of this Beginner’s Guide, and visit her blog, LoveandWill.com, for more writings on Assagioli and psychosynthesis.
For those interested in a more in-depth guide to using the Archives, Catherine will host a free, online demonstration on 16th September.