Abstract

The stock of the Ancient Books Section in the Department of Statistics “Paolo Fortunati” of Bologna University include 19 volumes of the seventeenth century, 48 of the eighteenth century, 152 of the nineteenth century and 4 volumes of the twentieth century, making a total of 223 books. Among the books of the seventeenth century are those of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Finance Minister of Louis XIV, works of Francis Bacon, English philosopher and politician and the fundamental work of the English School of Political Arithmetick of 1662 attributed to John Graunt. Amongst prominent authors of the eighteenth century are Thomas Robert Malthus, Joseph-Louis Lagrange and Pierre Simon Laplace. Nineteenth century works of Melchiorre Gioja, Gian Domenico Romagnosi, Adolphe Quetelet who unified the four historical currents of Statistics, and of Karl Pearson, one of the founders of contemporary Statistics are kept in the Archive. The twentieth century admirable work of Giovan Battista Salvioni on the value of the Bologna currency from 1551 to 1604 should also be mentioned.