We have employed state-of-the-art evolutionary models of low and
intermediate-mass AGB stars, and included the effect of circumstellar dust
shells on the spectral energy distribution (SED) of AGB stars, to revise the
Padua library of isochrones (Bertelli et al. 1994). The major revision involves
the thermally pulsing AGB phase, that is now taken from fully evolutionary
calculations by Weiss & Ferguson (2009). Two libraries of about 600 AGB
dust-enshrouded SEDs each have also been calculated, one for oxygen-rich
M-stars and one for carbon-rich C-stars. Each library accounts for different
values of input parameters like the optical depth {\tau}, dust composition, and
temperature of the inner boundary of the dust shell. These libraries of dusty
AGB spectra have been implemented into a large composite library of theoretical
stellar spectra, to cover all regions of the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram (HRD)
crossed by the isochrones. With the aid of the above isochrones and libraries
of stellar SEDs, we have calculated the spectro-photometric properties (SEDs,
magnitudes, and colours) of single-generation stellar populations (SSPs) for
six metallicities, more than fifty ages (from 3 Myr to 15 Gyr), and nine
choices of the Initial Mass Function. The new isochrones and SSPs have been
compared to the colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of field populations in the
LMC and SMC, with particular emphasis on AGB stars, and the integrated colours
of star clusters in the same galaxies, using data from the SAGE (Surveying the
Agents of Galaxy Evolution) catalogues. We have also examined the integrated
colours of a small sample of star clusters located in the outskirts of M31. The
agreement between theory and observations is generally good. In particular, the
new SSPs reproduce the red tails of the AGB star distribution in the CMDs of
field stars in the Magellanic Clouds.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA