Digitization of Vatican Secret Archives
The project will not only digitize all of the documents within the archives but develop a platform for the general public to access and research the documents. The archives include 53 miles of shelving, 35,000 volumes of catalogue and 12 centuries worth of documents. Notable documents include Henry VIII of England's request for a marriage annulment, a handwritten transcript of the trial of Galileo for heresy, and letters from Michelangelo complaining he had not been paid for work on the Sistine Chapel.
Given the sensitive nature of the documents held in the archive and the sheer volume of texts, the project costs a total of $9 million to complete. The Vatican began the digitization project in 2018 and has digitized over seven million images (this is a fraction of the content of the archives). This includes purchasing the equipment necessary to digitize the documents (this is highly specialized in order to avoid damaging the documents) and the hiring of the personnel needed to complete the task.