The Iberarchivos program is an initiative of cooperation and integration of the Ibero-American countries for the care and promotion of documentary heritage, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Spanish government.
Each year, the program invites Ibero-American member countries to submit proposals for the funding of archival projects of proven national and international relevance. The institution in charge of carrying out the tender in Peru is the National General Archive.
In January 2020 the "Santa Rosa" Salesian Province of Peru created its own Salesian Historical Archive, in which, in August of the same year, it received the handwritten and printed documentation, as well as the photographs and recordings belonging to the Servant of God Luigi Bolla, a professed priest of the Salesian Society who served as a missionary among the Achuar indigenous people of Peru and Ecuador.
The cataloging of this precious collection was started in 2020 by the historian Carlos Ríos and continued in 2021 and 2022 by the historian Diego Aguado, under the responsibility of David Franco, historian of the Salesian Province of Peru, and with the guidance of Fr Vicente Santilli, the main connoisseur of the life and work of don Bolla.
The importance of the collection, increased by the start of the cause for the beatification and canonization of Fr Bolla, made it very necessary to digitize it; and with the approval of the Provincial of PER, Fr Manuel Cayo, and the Provincial Economer, Fr José Valdivia, it was decided to submit the Bolla Collection to the international competition of Iberarchivos.
The collection's digitization project was presented for the first time in 2020 but lost by a small margin. In 2021 it was re-presented, with some improvements, and the Iberarchivos jury, which met in Spain in mid-June 2022, finally awarded its funding for the conservation, digitization, and dissemination of the Bolla Collection.
“It will be a great contribution to the cause of beatification and canonization of Fr Luís Bolla, as well as to the Salesian historical memory and knowledge of the Achuar culture, which we Salesians in Peru are happy to fulfill,” the Salesians from Lima happily commented.
