Violetta the Cow

The original labels on taxidermic items belonging to the Veterinary and Livestock Sciences Laboratory collections included information enabling identification of the animals: the scientific name, an inventory number, the preservation process and the taxidermist’s name. One of these labels includes the animal’s name: Violetta, a crossbred heifer derived from a Braunvieh and a Dutch Friesian. After she saw the day in Emilia Romagna in 1902 Ezio Marchi, the most famous Italian livestock specialist of his era, used her to study milk production; she could thus be considered an ancestor of today’s Italian dairy breeds.