Nowadays, only few archives of Sicilian convents still exist, so to reconstruct their history we have to look for indirect evidence. The memory of the medieval convents also survives thanks to the fonds Corporazioni Religiose Soppresse of the State Archive of Palermo which contains many copies and some original documents. In addition, we can find information on monastic chapters and real estate assets in the notarial sources, and we can trace the relationship between the convents and the royal power in public documents of the fonds Protonotaro del Regno and Real Cancelleria belonging to the same archive. The disappearance and the dispersion of the convents' archival heritage was caused above all by wars and natural disasters, such as earthquakes, floods and fires, but it was also due to the lack of attention paid by some abbesses. Suffice it to remember that in the 15th century, Scolastica de Augusta, Abbess of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio (or Martorana), was praised for having meticulously recorded every expense made by the convent and kept the accounting notebooks in a locked box. When Scolastica died, Abbess Tarsia Bologna neglected the accounting to such an extent that when they opened the box some cockroaches jumped out. Despite the dispersion of the archival sources, the history of eight medieval convents of Palermo has been reconstructed in two books pubblished in 2016 (P. Sardina, Il monastero di Santa Caterina e la città di Palermo) and in 2020 (Ead., Per gli antichi chiostri) by examining the above-mentioned categories of sources, and also the iconographic and archaeological ones, a clear demonstration that indirect evidence is fundamental.