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The history of Gazola’s collection of fossil fishes from Monte Bolca (Italy) is generally incompletely known as reference is only made to the requisitioning of this collection, in May 1797, by commissioners who accompanied the French troops which occupied Verona. However, the study of manuscript sources has allowed to show that Giovanni Battista Gazola stayed in Paris for a long time during the year 1803 and that, on the 10th of May (20 Floreal an 11), he wrote a letter to the administrators of the french Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, for proposing them to offer new specimens that could complete the part of his collection which had been seized five years earlier.
palaeontological collection, fossil fishes, Eocene, Italy, 18th century, 19th century