The first treatise devoted entirely to molluscs, and the first practical guide for shell collectors.
"Bonanni's work is significant for his careful attempts to precisely describe shell morphology. Unfortunately, due to the printing and engraving process, the spirals shown on the shells were reversed from dextral to sinistral, a mirror image problem that later books avoided. Zoological taxonomies of the time were based on visual characteristics, and Bonanni paid special attention to both form and color, and showed details (sometimes fanciful) of the creatures inside the shells. Although his work predated the adoption of Linnaeus' system of binomial nomenclature (genus + species), Bonanni laid the foundation for the new discipline of conchology.^[1] Several later Linnaean names were based on Bonanni's work, including the name of the class Bivalvia, which he introduced." (Wikipedia article on Filippo Bonanni, accessed 12-2021).

Illustrates several early microscopes, including the famous microscopes of the Bolognese Joseph Campani. Contradicting Redi, Bonanni tried to show that spontaneous generation was possible in animals "without blood and a heart." Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Extensively illustrated catalogue by Bonanni of the Musaeum Kircherianum, formed in the mid-17th century by the Jesuit polymath, Athanasius Kircher, and housed in the Jesuit Collegio Romano. Reflective of Kircher's polymathic interests, the museum included objects of every kind from many disciplines: antiquities, archaeology, ethnography, natural history, etc., and also included a number of mathematical, scientific, and physical instruments. Components of Kircher's museum were later dispersed to various other museums in Rome, leaving this book as the only record of its contents. Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.