Introduction
The Museum houses an extensive collection of specimens both from mineral and metal deposits in Italy and abroad, by now largely depleted, and from inaccessible mountain locations, where mineral hunters still venture out today in search of precious “rock crystals”.
Dating back to the early 1700s and the acquisitions of Vallisneri, the collection today consists of no less than 18,000 specimens including minerals, gemstones, samples of mineral deposits and meteorites.
The exhibits also include a wealth of 19th and 20th century scientific instruments: goniometers, polariscopes and microscopes, employed historically for measuring and observing the morphological features of crystals.
Collections
Meteorites Collections
The collection of meteorites kept by the museum has been much enhanced over time, with the addition of specimens having great scientific and exhibitory value. Worthy of mention among these are fragments of a carbonaceous chondrite that fell to Earth on 22 January 1910 in the town of Vigarano, near Ferrara. Among the items of scientific interest, acquired recently, are a fragment of the Tissint, a 'Martian’ meteorite, a slice of Bechar 006, a Lunar meteorite, and a perfectly preserved specimen [...]
Lorenzo Lazzarini Collection
Lorenzo Lazzarini is a top expert on lithologies used in antiquity and in later historical ages, who kindly donated his private collection to the museum, enriching its assets with items of exceptional aesthetic, historical and scientific value.
It consists of 222 specimens which include some architectural fragments but mainly samples from ancient caves. The collection comprehensively displays all the main lithologies used in decoration from Roman times to recent times, with particular emphasis [...]
Giuseppe Sanco Collection
The Sanco mineralogy collection comprises more than 400 mineral samples of varying dimensions and provenance.
Giuseppe (Bepi) Sanco was among the founding partners of the Gruppo Mineralogico Euganeo (Euganean Mineralogy Group).
A great enthusiast, connoisseur and collector of minerals, he visited a variety of mineralogical sites, of which his favourites were Trepça in present day Kosovo and Baia Mare in the Maramures region of Romania.
Among the minerals from the lead-zinc deposits of these are[...]
Giorgio Gasser Collection
Giorgio Gasser, from Alto Adige, was a naturalist whose collection of minerals was acquired by the University of Padua in 1934. It is a collection of notable historical and regional interest, especially given the numerous mineralogical specimens originating from deposits in the Alto Adige and Austrian Tyrol areas, many of which by now entirely depleted.
The Gasser collection comprises nearly 2,500 items.
These include a set of colourless, smoked and amethystine quartzes coming from deposits in t[...]
Angelo Bianchi Collection
This comprises some 200 medium and small size specimens of collectable minerals.
Worthy of note are specimens including Sicilian sulphur, quartz, pericline from the Valle Aurina (South Tyrol), hematite from the Isle of Elba, and demantoid from the Val Malenco (Lombardy) and numerous isolated crystals of aquamarine, apatite, fluorite, quartz, spodumene, polychrome tourmaline and topaz from Brazil, featuring optimum colour tones and gem quality.
The collection of professor Angelo Bianchi, donated [...]
