Minerals from the Carpathian Mountains and from Transylvania donated by Joseph II (1785) to the museum of the Collegio Nazareno, Rome, Italy

Mottana, Annibale and Mussino, Alberto and Nasti, Vincenzo (2012) Minerals from the Carpathian Mountains and from Transylvania donated by Joseph II (1785) to the museum of the Collegio Nazareno, Rome, Italy. Central European Geology, 55 (1). pp. 103-122. ISSN 1788-2281

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Abstract

Abstract The mineralogical museum of the Collegio Nazareno of the Piarists Order in Rome was founded by Gian Vincenzo Petrini c. 1760. It hosted minerals and rocks the Popes had received as gifts and given to Piarists to support their teaching, as well as minerals collected from Roman and Neapolitan volcanoes. On March 24, 1769, the museum was visited by Emperor Joseph II, officially there as an incognito tourist but, in fact, to organize the election of a Pope who would abolish the Jesuit Order. On June 14, 1785 the Emperor, by now King of Hungary as well, presented eight crates of minerals from mining areas in Transylvania and Upper Hungary, i.e. Slovakia. This collection had been organized by “Baron of Born”, who also wrote down descriptions of all the specimens (mostly ores), as referred to in Petrini (1791–92). The museum of the Collegio Nazareno has survived and the royal gift is partially preserved, curated by the Gruppo Mineralogico Romano (GMR), a private association of amateurs founded in 1982. The museum now exhibits a rare collection of minerals from 18th century central Europe, organized according to systematics that just preceeded the major scientific changes brought about in mineralogy by the crystallographic approach.

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