Access to auction houses databases and to other databases such as antiques dealers’ and collectors’ will be followed by the retrieval of the descriptions and of the images of Italian school paintings from XIV to XIX century; a computed based filing and the subsequent cataloguing are the next steps. The parameters will thus be set so as to allow their identification and to pinpoint their provenance, which will be made possible thanks to the comparison between the image and the written document. “External” information – writings, labels, inscriptions and the like– is also of remarkable import at this stage.