Inscriptions are among the most directly transmitted historical sources; they provide crucial information on the life and living of ancient societies. This knowledge was already a reason in earlier centuries to copy inscriptions and edit them in collections: the Codex Einsidlensis from the Carolingian period offers an early compilation of Latin inscriptions. Scholars made particular efforts to preserve the inscription tradition during the Renaissance. However, over time, these collections, such as those of Cola di Rienzo or the Scaliger family, no longer met the changing criteria for critical editions. In addition, they quickly became outdated in view of the growing amount of inscription material. Even outstanding figures of subsequent generations, such as Gaetano Marini, were no longer able to cope with the vast amount of material on their own. The idea of comprehensive corpora was finally pursued in various places and institutions in Europe from the early 19th century onwards.
After a long run-up, the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences approved the financing of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum in 1853 under the direction of Theodor Mommsen, Wilhelm Henzen and Giovanni Battista de Rossi. The first volume was published ten years later. By the First World War, most of the known Latin inscriptions from antiquity had been published. This was largely due to the international network of scholars established by Mommsen.
Financial difficulties, Germany's isolation after the First World War, and the political situation in the GDR, where the Academy found itself after the Second World War, changed the work of the CIL after 1945. From this point on, individuals and institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany and abroad took over the execution and financing of the epigraphic work. The Berlin office continued to work on an editorial basis.
Originally an independent institution under the umbrella of the Berlin Academy, the CIL was integrated into various Academy institutes from 1955 to 1991. After a transitional phase, the project has been operating under the auspices of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities since the beginning of 1994. The reunification of Germany was accompanied by an intensification of the cooperation with colleagues at the international level that had been taken for granted before the First World War. In addition to German epigraphists, the CIL currently cooperates with scientists from Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, France, Sweden, Finland, Czechia and Hungary. It also has contacts in North Africa, the USA, Canada and Australia.
Today, the CIL counts 17 volumes in folio format in about 80 parts, containing almost 200,000 inscriptions. The supplementary volumes provide tables, indices, and further studies. The inscriptions are edited mainly on the basis of the original inscriptions, but also in consideration of their tradition in manuscripts and print. All volumes include readings of the inscriptions and a historical contextualisation, built upon a comprehensive documentation of the epigraphic and archaeological findings. Furthermore, the editions contain bibliographies, information on the ancient places in which the inscriptions were found, thematic indices, and maps.
Since the mid-1990s, the CIL volumes offer photos and sketches of the inscriptions. Up to that point, such visual documentation had only been provided in select cases, on separate plates or on microfiches, which were added to the respective volumes; only in exceptional cases were photos or drawings included in the volumes themselves. Today, the pictures are integrated in the entries alongside the transcription and the reading of the inscription’s text. The visual documentation of the inscriptions edited in the CIL is accessible via the open access database of the project.