The essay examines two hitherto unknown albums of Italian cuttings from the collection of Carl Ferdinand Friedrich von Nagler preserved at the Kupferstichkabinett (78 A 201-2) in Berlin. The first volume includes around a hundred decorated letters painted by the Master of Cardinal Antoniotto Pallavicini, while the second contains illuminated initials by the so-called Master of the Missals of Urban VIII. After analysing the collection of Nagler in the context of the European cuttings collections, the article sheds light on the provenance of the first album from the Cardinal Pallavicini manuscripts once held in the Sistine Chapel, their parent fragments now hosted in some English museums and libraries and cut out by the Abbé Luigi Celotti at the beginning of the 19th century. Secondly, it identifies the manuscripts related to the second group of fragments as Missal A.II.13, Benedictional A.I.26 once recorded in the Sistine sacristy inventories. The last part of the present contribution focuses on the making of albums from the 16th century onwards, suggesting some case-studies of cuttings collected as specimens of the art of illumination, palaeography and calligraphy, didactic models and as part of the Gothic Revival, in Italy, Germany, France and England.