This week I have had the privilege of working in three archives in Vatican City and Rome: the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, the Archivio Storico della Segreteria di Stato, and the Archivio di Stato di Roma. This has been a trip long in the planning, primarily due to the somewhat involved admissions processes for the two archives in the Vatican, but has been very worthwhile. I have learned a great deal about Macintosh’s time in Italy in 1790 and 1791, I have a better understanding of his relationship with Francesco Saverio de Zelada, the Cardinal Secretary of State, and I have confirmed that Macintosh did, indeed, meet with Pope Pius VI.

In addition to what I’ve learned about Macintosh, I have also gained some insight into the practicalities involved in using these three archives that are not necessarily obvious or well advertised. I thought it might be helpful, therefore, to note some of these down. These are reflections and observations based only on my very limited experience and from working with quite a narrow range of material, but I hope they will be helpful to those interested in working in the same archives.

Archivio Apostolico Vaticano

This is the largest and most famous of the archival collections contained in the Vatican and holds something in the region of 85 linear kilometres of material, much of which is stored in the “bunker” built beneath the Cortile della Pigna. As a first-time user, it can be difficult to comprehend the scope of the collection and how to identify relevant material. The archive does have a good overview document, Indice dei Fondi e relativi mezzi di descrizione e di ricerca, which showcases the overall structure of the archive and indicates which indexes describe the content of individual sections. This document is also important for subsequently ordering material, since it lists the abbreviated titles of collections that are used in the online ordering system.

For Anglophone researchers, an indispensable guide is the 1998 book Vatican archives: an inventory and guide to documents of the Holy See, edited by Francis X. Blouin, Jr. The value of this work is that it explains what is actually contained in each section of the collection and provides additional references to scholarly work on those collections. By triangulating these various sources and guides, it is possible to get a sense of whether or not a particular section contains relevant information. In addition to these two titles, which can be consulted prior to arrival in the archive, the archive itself contains a room, the Sala Indici (Leone XIII), that holds the various indexes, both printed and manuscript. This room also contains the computers through which you submit orders. One thing that I discovered is that some (perhaps all) of the indexes have been digitised and can be viewed on the computers in the Sala Indici. Via these computers it is also possible to access the intranet page of the archive, which contains additional useful information. Sadly, I don’t think any of the indexes are available for remote consultation.

It is possible to order three items per day, which are delivered to the adjoining Sala Consultazione Documenti (Pio XI). I found the delivery times quite rapid, but it is necessary to check to see whether the documents have been delivered; they are not brought to you.

Practicalities

In order to use the archives, it is necessary to apply in advance, a procedure which is explained online here. When planning a visit to the archive, it is important to check the opening times and dates, noting that the archive closes for most of the summer. Assuming your application for access is approved, you will be issued with an email that will allow you to pass the security checks to enter Vatican City by way of the Porta Sant’Anna. From there, you walk west along Via Sant’Anna, and through the archway into the Cortile del Belvedere.

The archive is not signposted (at least as far as I could see), but is accessed from the door in the northwest corner of the courtyard (this is on the same side as the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana).

On your first visit to the archive, it is necessary to collect an admissions card (tessera di ammissione), which can be obtained from the admissions office (Segreteria Accettazioni) on the ground floor. Once you have your card, you present it at the reception desk to receive a locker key so that you can leave your possessions in the locker room (guardaroba). The index and consultation rooms are located on the third floor of the building (accessible via a dinky lift or via the stairs). There is no assigned seating, so you can sit wherever you prefer.

The main consultation room overlooks Cortile della Biblioteca, where there is an inexpensive café (il Bar B.A.V.), where you can get drinks, snacks, and sandwiches throughout the day. It is used by staff and visitors, but is not accessible to tourists, so does not get too crowded (at least in my experience). The Cortile is a nice place to pass time while waiting for documents to arrive.

Some things to note

It is not possible to take photographs in the archive, although you can order reproductions of material (albeit at quite a steep price). The limit on the number of items that can be ordered per day means that it is important to prioritise and be selective. The archive is open for the whole day only on Mondays and Tuesdays (it is a half day for the rest of the week). In addition to the index and consultation rooms, there are two additional rooms on the level below that contain printed reference works and are where digitised materials can be viewed. In addition to the café in the Cortile, there are vending machines selling drinks and snacks near the toilets. There is no wi-fi.

Archivio Storico della Segreteria di Stato

This archive is located almost directly opposite the Archivio Apostolico, at the southern end of the Cortile del Belvedere. Like the apostolic archive, it does have a strict policy governing admission and is a little more involved with respect to the documentation you need to provide. The process is explained on the archive’s website. The archive operates an online booking system, meaning it is necessary to reserve a seat (or workstation) in the reading room. These are done in timed blocks: 9 till 11 and 11 till 1. There is a notional limit of 100 bookings per year, at which point additional permissions are required. If you miss a certain number of bookings in a year, your access can be rescinded.

Assuming your request for access has been granted, it is necessary to collect your admissions card from a rather more imposing location: the Ufficio Permessi del Corpo della Gendarmeria. To access the permissions office, it is necessary to present yourself at the Portone di Bronzo (bronze door) in the Apostolic Palace. As a first-time visitor, it is not necessarily obvious how to get there, since it is not signposted. The easiest thing to do is to enter the colonnade of St Peter’s Square, by way of Via di Porta Angelica, and pass through the security checkpoint for visitors going on to see the basilica. You then follow the colonnade to the west, and you will eventually find the Portone di Bronzo. Once you pick up your card, you retrace your steps and head back to the Porta Sant’Anna to enter Vatican City, following the same route as for the apostolic archives.

The archive is, continuing a theme, not obviously signposted and is accessed via this door. There is an key card reader and, on presenting your admissions card, the door will open, leading you into the locker room, where you can leave your possessions.

The archival reading room is a bit like a wooden spaceship and is nicely set out. You take a seat at your pre-booked workstation, where it is possible to interrogate the archival indexes and to view certain materials that have been digitised. Unlike the apostolic archive, the externally available description of the archival collection is very minimal (described on the website here), but using the workstations it is possible to get a much better sense of what is in the collection. I am not sure how much of the material is available digitally, but the items I needed to consult were available in hardcopy only and it took only about 25 minutes for the material to be delivered.

Some things to note

Like the apostolic archive, it is not possible to take photographs (although reproductions can be ordered). It is possible to order up to five items per day, but it is important to note that the opening hours are limited to 9 till 1 every day. The archive is also closed during most of the summer and also follows the standard pattern of closing on certain feast days. There is no wi-fi.

Archivio di Stato di Roma

The state archives are located in the Biblioteca Alessandrina, part of the Palazzo della Sapienza, adjoining the church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza. It is a beautiful building, but it also lacks signage (which is a recurring theme with archives in Rome!).

The archives have a comprehensive catalogue which can be consulted online, which eliminates some of the guesswork involved in determining whether or not it holds material relevant to one’s research interests. Material can also be ordered online in advance, even without a reader’s card. You need to register with the online system (which I believe is now common to all state archives in Italy) and place your order. Items will be held for seven days from the date of delivery.

The archive itself is located on the first floor of the palace, on the northern side. Again, there is no obvious signage, but is accessed through a glass sliding door (indicated as door XXII).

At the reception desk on the left-hand side, you can collect your admission card by presenting your identity card or passport (which will be held until you check out at the end of your visit). You will be issued with a locker key that also corresponds to your desk in the reading room. The reception desk can also provide you with the unique password needed to access the wi-fi. Items ordered in advance should be ready for immediate collection, which you can do from the issue desk next to reception.

The reading room itself is extremely atmospheric, particularly the impressive coffered ceiling. Perhaps the most welcome aspect, however, is the fact that photography is permitted!

Some things to note

The archive is open Monday to Friday, 9 till 6, but researchers are limited to consulting three items per day (with some exceptions based on the type of material).

The final fifteen years of Macintosh’s life were concerned, in one way or another, with the actions and sentiments of Napoleon Bonaparte. From 1797, Napoleon was a regular subject in Macintosh’s letters to his spy handler, William Wickham, and to government officials in London. For Macintosh, the “little general” was understood to be “equally deficient in…dignity, politeness, & civility, which are the constant concomitants of true Bravery, Education & good-breeding.” Despite this assessment, Macintosh engaged in some flattering diplomacy with Napoleon in early 1800, shortly after the coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799), that had seen him take power as First Consul of the French First Republic. 

Writing from Nuremburg on 4 January 1800, Macintosh enclosed a gift, which he hoped Napoleon would find instructive and inspiring: “a small duodecimo volume printed at Rouen in 1672”. This volume was La vie du general Monk Duc d’Albemarle, an “account of the glorious achievements and of the life & actions of that extraordinary person.” George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, had been centrally involved in the 1660 restoration of the Stuart monarchy in Britain, and his actions were presented by counterrevolutionaries like Macintosh as an example that they hoped Napoleon would follow. In his letter, Macintosh extoled the various rewards, honours, plaudits, and “perpetual dignities” that would be bestowed on Napoleon if he were to follow Monck’s example and oversee the restoration of the monarchy in France.

What, if anything, Napoleon made of Macintosh’s letter is not clear. I had hoped that one of the two copies of La vie du general Monk that are held in Napoleon’s library at the Château de Fontainebleau might contain an inscription linking them to Macintosh, but unfortunately they do not (my thanks to the staff there for checking on my behalf).

One element of Macintosh’s letter that is particularly intriguing, however, is a reference he makes to a “talisman” that he had been provided with in 1798 with the intention that it be delivered “into your own hands” at Rastatt during the Second Congress of Rastatt. This “talisman”, presumably a letter, was never actually delivered, and its content can only be guessed at. That said, writing in 1847, Macintosh’s grandnephew, George Macintosh, believed this “talisman” was “reason to suppose, that in the course of the year 1798, Mr. W. Macintosh had…been employed by the exiled Bourbons to communicate with Buonaparte, respecting their return to France.”

Beyond Macintosh’s obscure reference to the “talisman”, it is certain that he was in contact during the late 1790s with a key supporter of the future Louis XVIII, the extravagantly named Joseph-Jean-Baptiste-Luc-Hippolyte come de Mareschal-Vezet (1743–1816). In de Vezet’s encoded correspondence—referred to in Henri Dugon’s book Au service du Roi en exil (1968)—Macintosh was given various noms de plume, including “Cerau” and “Come.” There remains, as ever, a great deal of digging still to do in order to establish Macintosh’s connection with the exiled Bourbons more firmly, but it seems probable that de Vezet was the most likely intermediary.

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with Deirdre Grieve (née Chapman), a long-time supporter of this project and a direct descendant of William Macintosh’s sister, Mary.

At the end of September, the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh will be hosting a launch event for Dierdre’s new novel, Badlands, which will be published by Vagabond Voices in October. Tickets are free and can be booked online here.

The recording of my inaugural lecture, “The archive in the armoire: rediscovering the global lives of William Macintosh,” was recently posted online. Although the recording doesn’t include my personal highlight—which was the very generous vote of thanks offered by my colleague, Felix Driver—it is otherwise a good substitute for those who were unable to attend in person.

Although my research has focused on identifying those who read Macintosh’s Travels, I had not really considered the possibility that there might exist an altogether different category of reader: the imaginary, or fictional. One such reader is the protagonist of the 1877 Spanish novel, El Guante Gris: a poor 28-year-old Flemish man, Flavio Albieh.

The novel sees Flavio reunite with an old school friend, Alberto Layland, in Ghent, where the pair commiserate over the recent deaths of their fathers. Alberto invites Flavio to spend the night in his palatial home, and Flavio is shown to a well-appointed room with a bookcase full of expensively bound travel narratives, including those by Edward Parry, John Franklin, and William Penny. Flavio’s attention is, however, taken by “los viajes de M. Makintosh en Asia, Africa y América,” and he spends a long time immersed in its pages—a distraction, of sorts, from Alberto’s strongly voiced prohibition on Flavio falling in love with Alberto’s beautiful younger sister, Ketrere, whom Flavio has just met.

Alberto, for his own part, is also lovestruck, following a chance meeting with an equally beautiful mixed-race woman from Whydah in West Africa, Velia Aral-noor. To Alberto’s great disappointment, Velia is required to return to Whydah almost immediately after their meeting, leaving only a grey glove as a token, but the lovestruck Alberto immediately commits to scouring the globe to find Velia again.

Flavio, meanwhile, having read Macintosh’s “libro precioso,” is inspired to join Alberto on his quest, partly to imitate the “denodado explorador del Africa central,” and partly to distance himself from Ketrere, with whom he has already fallen hopelessly in love.

It goes without saying that the author of El Guante Gris, Aureliano Colmenares, likely cited Macintosh’s Travels based on its title alone, rather than its content, which deals hardly at all with parts of Africa that interest Flavio and Alberto. Are there other fictional readers of Travels? Only time, and yet more digging, will tell.

I have written before about Macintosh great-grandson, Georges-Fernand Dunot de Saint-Maclou, famous in the nineteenth century as the founder of the Bureau des Constatations Médicales at Lourdes. Dunot de Saint-Maclou’s life will be celebrated by a conference taking place in September, in his home town, Ouézy. Among the speakers is padre Andrea Brustolon, author of the definitive Italian-language biography of il dottore della grotta.

Despite almost a decade and a half on Macintosh’s archival trail, new discoveries continue to take me by surprise. I have spent some time recently working through material at the National Archives relating to Macintosh’s time as a counterrevolutionary spy in Bern in the 1790s. Although it will be some time before I am able to write about this period (in the chronology of the book, I am still in 1780!), I have been keen to gather as many sources as I can for this phase of his life, so that I have a better sense of what I will be dealing with when the time comes. What took me by surprise in this material, most particularly, was a letter sent by Macintosh to his Foreign Office contact, George Canning, in February 1799. The previous year, Macintosh had fled from Bern when Switzerland was invaded by France, and had taken up residence in Stuttgart.

Perhaps conscious that his value to the counterrevolutionary movement was waning, and (as ever) complaining of ill health and insufficient funds, Macintosh proposed yet another reinvention in his personal and professional life. His letter to Canning was, in effect, a request for a favour. Could Canning pull some strings, Macintosh wondered, to have him assigned to Lord Elgin‘s (he of the Parthenon sculptures infamy) new embassy to Constantinople? Macintosh imagined that his particular combination of knowledge and experience would be valuable to Elgin: “It is possible, & even very probable,” he told Canning, “that my knowledge of the British concerns, relation, & future views with Asia, Africa, and the Levant in general, might prove occasionally useful to his Lordship”.

In anticipation of an affirmative response, Macintosh planned to leave Stuttgart for Erlangen or Nuremberg, which were “upon the ordinary high road to Vienna”, so that, presumably, he would be better-placed to make an onward journey. I know from other sources that Macintosh did make it to Nuremberg, but his hopes of joining Elgin’s embassy clearly came to nothing; he was still in Germany, in Offenbach, in November 1801.

In some respects, this episode is entirely in keeping with Macintosh’s modus operandi, yet it still took me by surprise; his appetite for reinvention still present, even in his early 60s. Given how minutely some periods of Macintosh’s life are detailed in surviving sources, I find the obscurity of his final dozen-or-so years tricky to analyse and narrate. Each newly encountered source for this period is, therefore, particularly valuable in providing some sense of his trajectory from counterrevolutionary spy to purportedly penurious exile in Eisenach.

For some time I have suspected that the Vatican archives might contain some archival trace of Macintosh’s visit to Rome in 1790/91, and of his dealings with Pope Pius VI and his cardinal secretary of state, Francesco Saverio de Zelada. There is, of course, a significant gap between suspicion and certainty, particularly when it comes to an archival collection that is difficult to make sense of, or plan to consult, at a distance. More than once I have lingered on the website of the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, and wondered about the slightly intimidating access requirements (necessitating a letter of recommendation, proof of academic credentials, etc., etc.) and the difficulty of knowing what they actually hold, in the absence of an externally accessible catalogue.

A considerable amount of work has been done by scholars in recent decades—particularly those working from the mid 1980s on the University of Michigan’s Vatican Archives Project—to develop catalogues and guides to the more than 85 linear kilometres of material that comprise the Vatican archives. Such work has led to the publication of Vatican Archives: An Inventory and Guide to the Historical Documents of the Holy See (1998), under the editorship of Francis X. Blouin, Jr., and other more thematically focused catalogues, like the multi-volume La rivoluzione francese (1787-1799). Repertorio delle fonti archivistiche e delle fonti a stampa conservate in Italia e nella Città del Vaticano, which is available for free on the website of the Direzione generale Archivi.

While such sources make it easier to visualise the organisation of the archive, and to develop a sense of where relevant information might be found, it is still somewhat confusing and intimidating for a first-time user such as myself. I was fortunate, therefore, to benefit recently from a conversation with the University of Kent historian Ambrogio A. Caiani, who has worked extensively in the Vatican archives, most particularly in researching his 2021 book, To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII. Hearing about Ambrogio’s first-hand experience was extremely useful from a practical point of view and also reignited my eagerness to pursue Macintosh’s archival trail to the Eternal City.

Following my meeting with Ambrogio, I returned to my familiar haunt of Google Books to try a series of new searches in the hope that I might find a definitive link between Macintosh and the Vatican archives. Although I have searched for Macintosh (in various forms of orthography) thousands of times over the years, the algorithm that presents Google Book search results is not particularly intuitive and often won’t return specific results for Macintosh unless paired with another relevant search term, such as a date or a name. To my great surprise and satisfaction, I was able to find Macintosh in the Vatican archives (or at least catalogued in vol. 1 of La rivoluzione francese, by searching for his name (as “Mac Intosh”) alongside the phrase “segretario di stato”. This is not the first time that a search result has only come up when paired with some other term; I learned about Macintosh’s role as a counterrevolutionary spy in Switzerland only when searching for him along with the word “Berne”.

I was delighted to find this reference, reproduced above, even if it is only to a handful of letters sent from Macintosh to Zelada in 1791, as it provides reassurance that an eventual trip to Rome will pay dividends. I strongly suspect that there is other material from, or about, Macintosh yet to be identified, both at the Vatican archives and at the Archivio di Stato di Roma, but it is nice to know where to begin. As ever with this project, the more I look, the more there is to see.

Last Friday, while I was guiding thirty undergraduate students around Cyprus, this blog turned thirteen. A number of the students had been kind enough during our trip to ask about my research, and the revelation that I had been working on this particular project since their early years at primary school was a shock to them (and to me!). While previous efforts to mark the birthday of this blog have often provoked a sense of anxiety on my part about how much time has elapsed since it began, and about how much work there is still to do, I am in the very fortunate position this year of having secured a 12-month research fellowship, beginning in September, that will allow me to bring this project to a close and to finish the book. The details of the fellowship are still under a publicity embargo, so I cannot name the funder, but I am both beyond grateful and indescribably relieved to have been awarded it. Knowing that I will have the time to finish the book feels like an especially privileged opportunity given the crisis that is currently gripping higher education in the UK and internationally, including at my own institution which last week opened a voluntary severance scheme. I am equally fortunate also to have gained a new editor, the book historian Marie-Claude Felton, who was kind enough to take me on as an orphaned author after my previous editor, the terrifically supportive Richard Baggaley, moved on to a freelance and consultancy role at the end of 2023.

When I mark this blog’s fourteenth birthday, a year from now, I hope to have all the book’s empirical chapters complete and to be well on my way to a full draft of the manuscript. Famous last words, of course!

The archive in the armoire: rediscovering the global lives of William Macintosh

18:15, 20 May 2025, Moore Building Auditorium,
Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, Egham, TW20 0EX.

During his remarkable and restlessly mobile lifetime, William Macintosh (1737–1813) was many things: colonial legislator, world traveller, prisoner of war, best-selling author, papal advisor, counterrevolutionary spy, and self-proclaimed citizen of the world. His work was read by Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith, he corresponded with Joseph Banks and George Washington, and dined with Aaron Burr and the Princesse de Talleyrand. Yet, today, Macintosh is almost entirely unknown. For more than a decade, Professor Keighren has been working to recover Macintosh from the shadows and to understand what his forgotten world and words can tell us about slavery, war, and the contested politics of British imperialism in the eighteenth century. Drawing on an unstudied archive of Macintosh’s personal papers, hidden in a wardrobe in Avignon and seized at the height of the French Revolution, Professor Keighren offers a fascinating insight into Macintosh’s forgotten life and why it still matters. Spanning the Caribbean, South Asia, and Europe, this lecture shows how one life can illuminate a global history.

For more information, and to register for a ticket, please visit the event listing page.