The catalogue of Zanichelli scientific publications between 1853 and 1939

This essay studies the scientific publications of Zanichelli publishing com pany from its origins up to the Second World War. The analysis is conducted on the basis of quantitative criteria (such as the target of the editions or their disciplinary fields), editorial criteria(such as the event of seco nd or third issues or the structure of series) and of the physical descript ion of the books (such as the number of pages and the presence of illustrat ions). The author intends to point out the evolution in time of one of the most significant parts of Zanichelli's general catalogue: starting from a s mall number of titles (among which some milestones, such as the first Itali an edition of Darwin's Origins of the Species of 1864) it turned into a ver y complex and developed organism.