After ten years work, he published the Musaeum Kircherianum (1709), a large folio volume that listed all of the objects in the collection and illustrated many of them.

Such interpretations were consistent with the new and challenging idea that the earth must have undergone "extraordinary alterations" to explain the diversity of types and locations of fossils.

[6] Bonanni created the earliest practical illustrated guide for shell collectors, Recreatione dell'occhio e della mente (1681).

Due to the printing and engraving process, the spirals shown on the shells were reversed from dextral to sinistral, a mirror image problem that later books avoided.

Zoological taxonomies of the time were based on visual characteristics, and Bonanni paid special attention to both form and color, and showed details (sometimes fanciful) of the creatures inside the shells.

Although his work predated the adoption of Linnaeus' system of binomial nomenclature (genus + species), Bonanni laid the foundation for the new discipline of conchology.

[7] Among other topics, Bonanni wrote of the ingredients craftsmen in China used to make the lacquer they used on porcelain, a popular import item for Europe at the time.

In 1720, Bonanni published his studies in Trattato sopra la vernice detta communemente cinese (1720), or Treatise on the Varnish commonly called Chinese.