Gazzola - Ippologia - 1842

THE HORSE AS SCIENCE, STATUS, AND MILITARY ART IN PRE-UNITARIAN ITALY
Splendid color illustrations by a contemporary hand. A monumental work of equine culture, Giovanni Antonio Maria Gazzola’s Ippologia sits at the convergence of scientific knowledge, military tradition, and aristocratic horse culture. Published in Naples in 1842, in a context still marked by the balances of the pre-unitarian states, the work reflects a systematic and “total” vision of the horse: animal, war instrument, symbol of rank, and object of technical study. The elegantly engraved frontispiece and the presence of illustrative plates confirm the intention to build not only a treatise but a prestigious editorial object destined for officers, breeders, and gentlemen. Here, hippology becomes both an encyclopedic discipline and a language of power.
MARKET VALUE
For complete copies of the second Neapolitan edition of 1842, well preserved and with intact plates, the market generally records values between €800 and €2,200, with higher figures for copies in fine bindings or with original plate coloring especially fresh and vivid.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION - COLLECTOR'S COPY
Splendid color illustrations by a contemporary hand. Frontispiece engraved with calligraphic elements and a vignette depicting three horses; presence of illustrative plates. Copy in elegant nineteenth-century calfskin binding with rich gold decorations on the spine and a red leather badge with the gold title “Gazzola Ippologia.” Overall very good condition: solid binding. In old books, with a centuries-long history, there may be some imperfections not always noted in the description. Pp. (2); 576; (2).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Ippologia or The Universal Treaty of Horses. Compiled by Gio. Ant. Maria Gazzola of Turin, a retired ancient cavalry officer. Second edition. Naples, Batelli e Comp., Typografia e Calcografia, 1842.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The work fits into the long European tradition of equestrian treatises, from Federico Grisone to the systematic works of the 17th–18th centuries, but with a specific 19th-century imprint: the rationalization of science. Gazzola approaches the horse not only as an object of training but as a complex organism to be studied anatomically, physiologically, and behaviorally. The text is organized into sections on breeding, breed selection, disease care, training, and military use. The military dimension remains central: the horse is still, in 1842, a strategic element in European armies. At the same time, the work reflects refined editorial taste: the plates and the frontispiece attest to an aesthetic intention that transforms the treatise into a prestigious representational object. In this sense, hippology becomes also a cultural code of the elites.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Giovanni Antonio Maria Gazzola, a Piedmontese cavalry officer, operated from the late 18th to the first half of the 19th century. His direct experience in the military world and in horse breeding allowed him to develop practical and theoretical knowledge of the horse, which converges in his Ippologia. A typical figure of the pre-unitarian era officer-technician, Gazzola represents that generation that sought to systematize traditional knowledge into more modern and scientific forms.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The work went through multiple editions, a sign of its dissemination and practical usefulness. The second Neapolitan edition of 1842 attests to the text’s circulation in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, indicating a broad interest in hippology within preunitarian Italy. Batelli workshops were active in producing technical and illustrated works, contributing to the volume’s typographic and iconographic quality. Copies currently on the market are relatively accessible but rarely in excellent condition and complete with all plates.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ICCU/OPAC SBN: catalog records under “Gazzola, Giovanni Antonio Maria – Ippologia,” Naples 1842 edition
WorldCat: records for “Ippologia ossia Trattato universale dei cavalli,” Naples, Batelli, 1842
Ceresoli, Bibliografia ippologica italiana, pp. 112-115 (entry on Gazzola)
Mennessier de La Lance, Essai de bibliographie hippique, vol. I, pp. 546-547 (on the tradition of European hippological treatises)
Benezit (for engravers active in Neapolitan calcographies of the period, alongside the plates)