The readers of the Bulletin are already acquainted with the Genoese cartularia, the bulky volumes in which mediaeval notaries of Genoa copied their notarial instruments. Those notarial records are a mirror of life in mediaeval Genoa. Notaries were called upon to record international treaties, state decrees, and local regulations; they recorded business transactions, which were all made in a notary's presence, ranging from large transactions involving considerable sums of money to small ones of a few pence; and, besides, notaries wrote out and copied in their books promises, agreements, or contracts of a most intimate and personal kind.