Donizetti and our Library

Our library as a source for research in the history of pharmacy. A recent example of an important publication in one of the major journals demonstrates the role our collection can play in the academic development of our discipline.

Our library has a wealth of works that highlight the artistic and cultural dimension of pharmacy: the study of the place of pharmacists and medicines in painting, but also in music, represents an essential and important aspect for the history of our profession. Numerous works and studies have been devoted to this subject. Doris Zaugg's doctoral thesis, published in 1995 in our publication series, the Green Series, is the result of an examination of many opera librettos and constitutes a milestone in this branch of our discipline. The author has thus done pioneering work by offering a synthesis of the place of pharmacists and medicines in operatic works. It is therefore only natural that the president of the International Society for the History of Pharmacy, Professor Halil Tekiner, in an article recently published in the Italian journal of the history of pharmacy, drew on this work among many other sources. He conducted a very in-depth analysis of the work of Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti.

We would like to thank the author, as well as the editors of the Italian journal, Dr Carla Camana and Dr Ernesto Riva, not only for allowing us to reproduce Halil Tekiner's article here, but also for kindly sending us the journal after each issue.