How to untangle historic libraries: illuminating collections through inventories

After the dissolution of religious orders in Italy in the 1860s, several collections that had belonged to religious houses were merged into those of public libraries. As a result, the provenance of each item is often uncertain. Based on the case-study of the former Servite cloister of San Pier Piccolo in Arezzo, this paper shows how inventories can prove helpful to identify books from a dispersed collection despite the absence of any clear ownership inscription.