The existence of an archive in the church of the "SS. Salvatore" was created by the archbishop Girolamo de Venero y Leyva, who ordered the institution in one of the chapters of his "Costitutiones" (a collection of directions written by the prelate among 1625 and 1628 to regulate the religious and administrative life of the "Collegiata").
Its seat was at that time in a small room next to today's sacristy, as the inscription  (over the door) testifies. In 1867 the archives was confiscated with the property of the Church. It was found again in 1962 "for a lucky circumstance" by Prof. Giuseppe Schirò that saved it. After having organized it, he inventoried and catalogued it.

Its importance is relevant not only for the history of the church of the "SS. Crocifisso" and for the College of the Canons, but also for the history of the town of Monreale.

It includes volumes and documents concerning the Benedictines, the monasteries of "San Castrense", of the "Cappuccini", of  "San Gaetano", of the "Carmine", the church of "Santa Maria in Orto" as well as an interesting musical archive.

This archive is composed of 40 volumes: 26 manuscripts
and 14 prints. The oldest manuscript is a code containing some "Prefationes" (Prefaces): the "colophon" dated 1558.

Of a certain interest are 4 codes containing a number of   sequences of which the oldest parts, richly illuminated,    may perhaps be dated back to the end of the sixteenth century.

The printed texts are gradual, antiphonaries, pontificals according to common usage. Some texts of Eduardo Lupo and Tommaso Ludovico da Victoria are very interesting.

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