One of the missions pursued by the museum is to keep improving the various collections, not least mineralogy, by acquiring exhibits of the highest calibre. Among the items added recently to the collection are a large piece of calcite presenting translucent, zoned crystals of pink and yellow-greenish colour measuring over 60 centimetres, coming from China, and several specimens of pyrite, in perfect pentagonal dodecahedron crystals on hematite, coming from a mining excavation near Rio Marina on the Isle of Elba.
Also worthy of note are an enormous specimen of microcline weighing around 70 kg with crystals measuring up to 30 centimetres coming from Pakistan, a large crystal of quartz weighing 35 kg from Malawi, a specimen of quartz presenting perfect elongated crystals found in the Val Formazza area (Piedmont-Swiss border), a specimen of crystalline barite from the Predil mine in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, and the Donizetti mineralogy collection, comprising some 500 mineralogical specimens, many of which from deposits in the Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto regions.
