Retaining and Mobilising Geometric Knowledge. Corrado Segre’s Card Index

This paper is dedicated to the history of an extremely particular manuscript: Segre’s personal card index. Consisting of 515 handwritten cards on which he annotated bibliographic references, excerpts of readings that could be useful in his studies and teaching, comments and memoranda, Segre’s Schedario is the manuscript catalogue of a virtual library, a sort of reasoned bibliography that photographs the cultural heritage of Corrado Segre and, more generally, of an Italian geometer of the Belle Époque. In this paper, we will analyse how Segre constructed, organised and used the Schedario in order to structure his teaching and research activity.