A catalogue of Azerbaijani manuscripts will be created in the Vatican archives, one of the largest in the world, head of the Department of Information and Translation of the Institute of Manuscripts under the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences and doctor of historical sciences Farid Alakbarli has said.
He said that despite there being ancient manuscripts and books from Azerbaijan in the Vatican, there is no catalogue.
Therefore, a catalogue is necessary to classify and publish them, but the first stage is to find them in the Vatican archives.
"Until now, the Vatican had no idea about the existence of the Azerbaijani manuscripts," he said. "The manuscripts are grouped by language, rather than by country."
He said that the manuscripts are divided into three groups.
Those written in Persian were included in the Persian Catalogue, those written in Arabic in the Arabic Catalogue and in Turkish in the Turkish Catalogue.
"The compiled lists of the manuscripts are now known and recognised as Azerbaijani," he said.
"This is a very important event."
He stressed that the copies of more than 500 archival documents including letters, reports and 60 manuscripts were brought from the Vatican to Azerbaijan.