Collection of old and rare natural history books
The core holdings of the Croatian Natural History Museum library, consisting mostly of 19th-century publications, were formed through valuable donations and the acquisition of private libraries, with significant contribution from Spiridon Brusina, the library’s founder. He was also responsible for acquiring the oldest and most valuable works preserved in the collection, which constitute the “Collection of Old and Rare Natural History Books,” primarily zoological works from the 17th, 18th, and first half of the 19th century.
The collection includes monographs spanning the period from 1638 (Aldrovandi, U., 1638: De piscibus libri V. et de cetis libri unus Bononiae) to 1850, with several exceptions of significant series published outside this range, such as Reports of the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger (1885–1889, 51 volumes), Systematisches Conchylien-Cabinet von Martini und Chemnitz (1874–1895, 65 volumes), and Folin & Pérrier (1867–1879): Les fonds de la mer (4 volumes), among others. It also includes individual monographs important for Croatian natural history, such as Josip Ettinger’s 1857 book Sriemsko-slavonsko-hrvatske divje životinje, zvieri i ptice…, the first zoological book written in the Croatian language.
It is noteworthy that this library material cannot be found in any other library in the Republic of Croatia.
Collection Curator: Darija Ćaleta