Pharmacopoeias, the official antidotaries licenced by the authorities, flourished in the sixteenth century. The first was the Ricettario fiorentino of 1498: Receptario composto dal famosissimo chollegio degli esimi doctori della arte et medicina della inclita ciptà di Firenze (digital copy). Then followed Barcelona (1535), Zaragoza and Nuremberg (1546), Antwerp (1560), and Cologne (1565). In Italy, after the one in Florence, there were pharmacopoeias from Mantua (1559), Bologna (1574), Bergamo (1580), Rome (1583), and Ferrara (1595) (Conci pp. 215-216).

The Library of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences of the University of Padova holds a 1750 edition of the Antidotarium Bononiense (digital copy). The book is divided in two parts: Galenic medicaments and chemistry-based medicaments. In the first are found the recipes from tradition, by Mesue, Rhazes, Avicenna, Nicholas of Salerno, Pietro d'Abano, to the more recent d’Acquapendente and Lemery. The ingredients are classic Galenic, listed in secular order since the Grabadin: electuaries, pills (even as troches, morsuli and tablets), powders, conserves, looch, rob and syrups, mellitis, wines, vinegars, emulsions, waters, drops, oils, poultices and wax-plasters. In the second part, chemical medicaments include tinctures, extracts, distilled waters, spirits, essential oils, and salts, with an entire chapter devoted to metals, based on the iatrochemistry established by Paracelsus, and which in 1750 still referred to the correspondence between metals and planets.
The work begins with the Venice "Treacle" (theriac) (Theriaca andromachi).
The regulatory intent of the Antidotary can be seen in the brevity of the writing: each recipe includes in a schematic way the ingredients, preparation techniques and therapeutic indications. Just compare, for example, the writing about the Confectio anacardina Mesuae and the oleum scorpionum with the recipe from the Grabadin. The preparation technique is only indicated with the term, which identifies it, without explanation, because the text is not didactic, but regulatory, and it entrusts the work to the professionals who carry it out in workmanlike manner: "fiat secundum artem", "ex lege artis". Some techniques are included in the appendix, only to guarantee the correctness of the procedure (for example, clarified sugar or refined honey) and storage of the preparations (such as for seeds, roots, and flowers), or for the complexity and rarity of application (such as for millipedes, corals, mother-of-pearl, as well crab eyes).
Then there is the list of substitutes for rare ingredients or those handed down by tradition, with uncertain identification, "nostris temporibus vel dubia ac obscura" (p. 460). Any abuse was to be punished: only those substitutes "concedi potest" (ibid). Another list enumerates the drugs that can be collectively used in the recipes, for example, the "quatuor semina calida majora" are anise, caraway, cumin, and fennel (p. 463).
In closing, the regulatory text includes two technical tables, the equivalence of measures and the indication of maximum doses of dangerous drugs such as Crocus, Hellebore, Mercury or Opium (see the section of the exhibition on Doses and measures). Finally, there is a list of medicinals to keep always in a pharmacy, Catalogus medicinalium compositorum ac simplicium quae ex praescripto illustrissimo Collegii medicinae In omnibus Pharmacopoliis Civitatis & Comitatus Bononiae perpetuo exstare debent. The expiration dates must be respected, indicated for each type of preparation, for example, eight years for opiate electuaries, but only one year for syrups. For some medicinals, there were scheduled inspections by the Archiater, the chief medical officer of the period (see the section on the profession of pharmacist). At the very end, there is a list of simples found in the Antidotary.