The human sciences library of anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Tito Vignoli (1824-1914) has recently been rediscovered at a branch of his heirs. This article seeks to reconstruct the various layers of the collection in terms of the disciplines represented, which includes volumes on topics such as philosophy, history of religions, anthropology, ethnography, linguistics, paleoethnology, geology and biology. Analysis of this library and its approximately 1,000 volumes sheds light on the formation and interests of a largely forgotten personality of Italian and Milanese culture of the late nineteenth century, and helps to provide an accurate picture of the human sciences as they were in these years.
Keywords: Tito Vignoli, private philosophical libraries, anthropology, evolutionism, scientific publishing