Giovanni Capsoni Collection
In February 1871 Giovanni Capsoni, moved by the desire to "see assured to perennial advantage of the public what I bought, collected and preserved for over half a century in the works and periodicals", he decided to donate at the University of Pavia his "books in medicine, surgery, related sciences, various statistics and literature" and all the manuscripts and printed material he collected during his professional career. The Capsoni llegacy originally made up of about 1,500 volumes and 5,000 manuscripts, is now identifiable only for the part relating to the papers since the works that were first included were transferred without a specific location, in the book heritage of the Library.
The Capsoni papers, now consisting of 93 files described in a manuscript inventory completed in 1952 and attached to the Inventory of the fund Ticinesi, are mostly notes, studies, summaries of works, analytics and catalogues collected by Capsoni himself in the years 1810-1871. As an evidence of this breadth of interest the existence of material that he gathered with passion as a scholar and collector. In the dense masses of documents collected the research carried out by the same Capsoni and other scholars on the existing relations between climate and morbidity and those relating to food and hygienic conditions of the Italian population stand out. Of particular interest also the notes and notations statistics on Lombard hospitals and the shelters for the mentally ill.
Biografical note by Giovanni Capsoni
Find Manuscripts by Giovanni Capsoni in Inventario dei manoscritti Ticinesi