The essay explores the Italian studies of the philologist Giuseppe Albini, starting with an analysis of the Soggetti di letteratura italiana in the Albini Archive of the Biblioteca Umanistica “Ezio Raimondi” (University of Bologna). In particular, it examines the autograph manuscripts related to his research on Foscolo (the different versions of the essay Andrea Chénier e Ugo Foscolo, the notes to Sepolcri), in order to highlight the epistemology of Albini's literary criticism, focused on revealing the permanence of the models of Greek and Latin classicism in the Modern literature.