La biblioteca del monastero del S. Sepolcro di Astino in un inventario di fine Quattrocento

This essay presents the edition and commentary of an inventory of the library of the Vallombrosan monastery of the Holy Sepulchre of Astino, near Bergamo (1494-1496). The document describes the state of the monastery’s books at the time of the transition in governance from the commendatory abbot Silvestro de Benedictis to the Congregation of Santa Maria of Vallombrosa. In those decades, Astino was emerging from an economic and institutional crisis that, between the 14th and 15th centuries, had weakened the monastery’s assets and adversely affected the condition of its library, which was marked by a lack of bibliographic updates and the poor preservation state of its manuscripts. The source is used here both to compare the situation of Astino with those of other religious institutions in the region and to supplement our limited knowledge of the history of the monastery’s manuscripts, most of which were lost following its suppression in 1797.