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Donkey milk knowledge archive · Historical source
Mattioli (1554): ass’s milk in the Dioscorides commentary – rich in whey, low in fat
In the 1554 Latin edition of his commentary on Dioscorides, Pietro Andrea Mattioli counts ass’s milk among the six kinds of milk used in food and medicine in his day. Of all of them, he writes, it has the most whey and the least fat.
- Author
- Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501–1578), physician from Siena
- Work
- Commentarii in libros sex Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbei de medica materia, Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi 1554
- Passage
- Commentary on book II, ch. 64 “Lac” (Dioscorides text p. 204), commentary p. 205
- Time & place
- 1554 (Latin edition; Italian version since 1544) · Venice
- Type of source
- Materia medica (commentary on an ancient work)
In the original words
What the original says
Sed à lacte primùm rem exorsus, de eo tantùm facultates disseram, cuius hac tempestate tam in cibis, quàm in medicamentis est usus.
But beginning with milk, I shall discuss the properties only of the kind that is used nowadays both in food and in medicines.
Tale autem est humanum, caprinum, ouillum, bubulum, bubalinum, & asininum.
Such milk is that of humans, goats, sheep, cattle, buffalo and asses.
Porrò asininum sicut lac omne seri exuberantia superat, sic cæteris pinguedine cedit.
Ass’s milk, moreover, exceeds every other milk in its abundance of whey, just as it falls behind the others in fat.
English rendering: our own translation by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, following the sense of the text.
A look at the original
What the passage looks like
Page 205 of the Latin edition, Venice 1554, with a woodcut of milking and butter-making; below it begins Mattioli’s commentary on milk, including the passage on ass’s milk.
The page comes from a freely accessible digitised copy. Click to open the passage at the library.
Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de santé (Paris), via Internet Archive; gemeinfrei (Licence Ouverte)
Background
Who, when, what kind of text
Pietro Andrea Mattioli came from Siena and worked as a physician in Trento and Gorizia, among other places, and later as physician to the Habsburgs. He became famous for his commentary on the materia medica of Dioscorides, written in the first century. The first version appeared in Italian in 1544; the Latin edition of 1554 linked here made the work known across Europe, and it was translated and reprinted many times.
The book follows the structure of Dioscorides: first comes the ancient text in Latin translation, then Mattioli’s detailed commentary, often with woodcuts. The chapter on milk (book II, ch. 64) is accompanied by a large woodcut showing milking and a butter churn. The ancient Dioscorides text itself has its own entry in our archive; this entry is about Mattioli’s sixteenth-century commentary.
Content
What the source reports about donkey milk
Mattioli wants to discuss only the kinds of milk used “hac tempestate”, that is, in his own time, in food and medicine: the milk of humans, goats, sheep, cattle, buffalo and asses. He leaves aside camel’s and mare’s milk, used in antiquity, because to his knowledge they were not in use in Italy and the neighbouring countries.
He then ranks the kinds of milk: human milk is the most balanced, followed by goat’s milk; sheep’s milk is thicker, and cow’s and buffalo milk the fattest. Of ass’s milk he writes that it exceeds all others in whey and falls behind them in fat.
Mattioli goes on to describe how to recognise good milk: white colour, a pleasant smell, a sweet taste and a medium consistency. A drop placed on the fingernail should stay in place rather than run off. He rejects milk from sick animals or from animals that have grazed on harmful plants.
At a glance
Figures & facts from the source
Timeline
Where this source stands in the history of donkey milk
Each dot is a source from our knowledge archive – from Greek antiquity to the present day.
Critical assessment
How reliable is this source?
Source value
An original print of 1554, viewable page by page as a scan. Mattioli’s commentary was one of the most widely used pharmacological books of the early modern period; his ranking of the kinds of milk was taken over by many later herbals and natural histories.
Between antiquity and the present
Mattioli relies explicitly on Galen and Dioscorides but checks them against the practice of his time: he omits what was no longer used in Italy. The passage shows that around 1550 ass’s milk counted as a milk in regular use, not merely as an ancient curiosity.
Today’s assessment
The statement about much whey and little fat rests on observation and ancient doctrine, not on chemical analysis. Later measurements broadly confirm that donkey milk is comparatively low in fat; Mattioli’s medical judgements, by contrast, are purely historical.
Our assessment
Mattioli offers one of the earliest printed rankings of the kinds of milk, in which ass’s milk has a fixed place. We are interested in how he checks ancient knowledge against the everyday practice of his time – and in the fact that his description of ass’s milk as rich in whey and low in fat was passed on for centuries.
References
Sources to check
- Primary sourcePietro Andrea Mattioli, Commentarii in libros sex Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbei de medica materia, Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi 1554, p. 205 (commentary on book II, ch. 64 “Lac”); digitised copy of the Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de santé, Paris, on the Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/BIUSante_00823/page/n257/mode/1up - SupplementaryPreceding page 204 with the Dioscorides text under commentary, “Lac. Cap. LXIIII”
https://archive.org/details/BIUSante_00823/page/n256/mode/1up
More sources and studies in the research archive. Summarised by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, as of November 2026.