Arts and humanities

A historical source cannot be reduced to mere information: it is, above all, a physical object, inscribed on a tangible medium and produced under specific social, technical, and institutional conditions. Whether it consists of scrolls, papers, images, or digital media, the materiality of the source—its format, weight, texture, state of preservation, or even the traces of use it bears—is a fundamental element for understanding its functions and uses. The source’s trajectory over time reinforces this dimension. Circulation, movement, loss, fragmentation, and reclassification are all stages that alter its status and meaning. The conditions of preservation and the choices made by institutions—archiving, selection, and classification—directly challenge the construction of historical memory. To ask what the institution “does” to the source is to acknowledge that the history that is transmitted is the product of material and political processes that shape access to the past.