Antique Books Collection of the Veterinary Medicine Library

The Biblioteca di Medicina Veterinaria’s rare book collection comprises 612 works, totalling approximately 1,340 physical volumes. It includes: 252 works on medicine; 202 works on veterinary medicine, farriery, and horsemanship; 70 works on chemistry, pharmacy, and physics; 50 works on botany, agriculture, and homeopathy; 22 works on natural history and entomology; 16 linguistic and technical dictionaries; and several works on humanities. Among the most significant veterinary texts in the collection are:

• Pietro De Crescenzi, Ruralia commoda (Peter Drach, Spira, 1490/95) – an incunabulum from the late 15th century
• Twenty 16th-century editions, including Carlo Ruini’s Dell’anatomia e dell’infirmità del cauallo (Heredi di Gio. Rossi, Bologna, 1598)
• Among the 17th-century texts—37 in total, all related to veterinary science—six works by the renowned naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi.
• 18th-century texts (around 200 items), such as: Gaspard De Saunier’s La parfaite connaissance des chevaux (A. Moetjens, The Hague, 1734); a fine copy of Philippe-Étienne Lafosse’s Cours d’hippiatrique (P. Poiré, Paris, 1772); Claude Bourgelat’s Élements de l’art vétérinaire in both French (Huzard, Paris, 1776) and Italian (S. Tissi, Belluno, 1777); Vegezio’s Ars veterinariae sive mulomedicinae (1781).

Also worth mentioning are five works by Francesco Bonsi, four by Lazzaro Spallanzani, and five by Giovanni Brugnone.

Most of the collection dates from the first quarter of the 19th century (around 330 volumes). Among them, in addition to foundational texts on veterinary medicine—by then an established discipline—there are numerous works from related fields, reflecting the Milan Veterinary School’s broader academic perspective. Notable examples include works by Giovanni Pozzi, Giovanni Rasori, and Filippo Re, as well as the Italian edition of Histoire naturelle by Louis Buffon, published in Livorno between 1830 and 1839.