L'Autografoteca di Giulio Bernardino Tomitano con l'indice delle lettere dei suoi corrispondenti

An introduction illustrating the origins and development of this particular kind of collecting in late 18th to early 20th Century Italy, was presented on the occasion of the transcription of an index of letters written by no fewer than six hundred authors, that were found in Giulio Bernardino Tomitano's Autografoteca, and that are today preserved in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana di Firenze (Ashburnham Fund 1720). It progresses from indeterminate collections of letters, received or written by scholars and men of culture, to specimens chosen for their documentary and historical value and not only due to their importance as "secular relics" of important figures, thus also bringing to life a burgeoning antiquarian market, that thrives to this day