St. Anne's City Hospital Collection
The collection, which consist almost entirely of the oldest core of the major city Hospital Medical Library, was temporarily entrusted to the University in 1992, when it was stocked in several university buildings. In 2010, all books were moved to a more suitable location in the Humanities Library, where books could be better taken care of and be made easily available to all users.
The collection amounts to more than 3200 items, spanning from the 15th to the 20th century and documents the development of Medical Science throughout time, with particular reference to Ferrara and its University. Amongst its most valuable items are treaties such as the Exercitationes duæ, quarum prior de passione hysterica by Nathaniel Highmore (Oxford, A. Lichfield, 1660), the Febris china chinae expugnata by renowned Ferrara physician Francesco Maria Nigrisoli (Ferrara, Giglio, 1700) and the controversial Advices and Letter addressed to «al sig. dott. Francesco Pecci medico di Ferrara» (Ferrara, 1754 and [after 1754]), by physician Ignazio Various under the pseudonym of «Castruccio Coppetta barbiere della villa di Cona».
Book-plates on most items can easily testify local scholars' interest; for instance, Professor Francesco Jachelli (-------) owned over 350 volumes, ranging from De lacteis thoracicis in homine … by Thomas Bartholin (Utrecht, Dirck van Ackersdijck & Gijsbert van Zijll, 1654) to the Osservazioni sopra le malattie di armata by John Pringle (Bassano, Remondini, 1781).
From 2014 to 2016 the whole collection was catalogued in the local (BiblioFe) and Italian National Catalogue (SBN), with great attention to item-specific information (book-plates, handwritten notes, bindings, etc), located in a specific section of the Humanities Library (ANTICHI MEDSANNA) and made available to all interested users.
The collection is available at:Biblioteca di Lettere e Filosofia
References
Le biblioteche della salute, a cura di Laura Cavazza e Zita Zanardi, «Rivista IBC» XIII, 2005, 2
Loans for exhibitions
Dall'Hortus Sanitatis alle moderne farmacopee (Ferrara, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, 1 dicembre 2008 - 14 febbraio 2009).(see Exhibition catalogue record)
Arte dei Medici e Speziali di Firenze, Ricettario fiorentino di nuouo illustrato (Firenze, Vincenzo Vangelisti & Piero Matini, 1670) - inv. COM 2432
George Bate, Pharmacopoeia Bateana (Venezia, Giovanni Gabriele Hertz, 1703) - inv. COM 1645
Antoine Baumé, Elementi di farmacia teorica e pratica (Venezia, Giuseppe Orlandelli, 1788) - inv. COM 1697
Johann Wendel Bilfinger, Pharmacopoea Wirtenbergica (Stoccarda, Christoph Ehrard, 1750)- inv. COM 2539
Luigi Vincenzo Brugnatelli, Farmacopea ad uso degli speziali e medici moderni d'Italia (Venezia, Giovanni Antonio Pezzana, 1803) - inv. COM 1059
Giuseppe Donzelli, Teatro farmaceutico, e spagirico(Venezia, Andrea Poletti, 1713) - inv. COM 1560
Antonio Ferrarini, Farmacopea (Bologna, Sassi, 1832) - inv. COM 1546
Hippocrates, Opera (Venezia, Abbondio Menafoglio, 1679) - inv. COM 2419
Bartolomeo Maranta, Della theriaca et del mithridato libri due (Venezia, Marcantonio Olmo, 1572) - inv. COM 2083
Marcellus Empiricus, De medicamentis empiricis, physicis, ac rationabilibus liber (Basilea, Hieronymus Froben & Nikolaus Episcopius, 1536 - inv. COM 1686
Mesue, I libri di Gio. Mesue dei semplici purgatiui, et delle medicine composte (Venezia, Alessandro Vecchi, 1621) - inv. COM 1904
Bartolomeo Montagnana, Consilia 305 (Venezia, Gaspare Bindoni, 1565) - inv. COM 1672
Francesco Maria Nigrisoli, Pharmacopeae Ferrariensis prodromus (Ferrara, Bernardino Barberi, 1725) - inv. COM 90079
Joseph Pitton De Tournefort, Traité de la matiere medicale, v. 1 (Parigi, Laurent d'Houry, 1717) - inv. COM 1062
Antonio Porati, Farmacopea economica proposta alla congregazione della carità di Milano (Milano, Giuseppe Maspero, 1810) - inv. COM 1383
Pierre Potier, Pharmacopoea spagirica (Bologna, Giacomo Monti & Carlo Zenero, 1635) - inv. COM 1683
Gaetano Savi, Istituzioni botaniche (Loreto, Rossi, 1840) - inv. COM 1507
Franz Xaver Schwediauer, Pharmacopoeia medici practici universalis, v. 2 (Bruxelles, Peter Joseph de Mat, 1817) - inv. COM 992
Giovanni Battista Soresina, Ricettario. Appendice 2. al Ricettario 1875 (Milano, Tip. Editrice lombarda, 1877) - inv. COM 1314
Julien Joseph Virey, Trattato compiuto di farmacia teorica e pratica (Verona, Antonelli, 1834-1836) - inv. COM 1489 e 1496
Johann Jacob Wecker, Antidotarium generale, et speciale (Venezia, Giorgio Varisco, 1608) - inv. COM 1629