Collectio Mineralium (1765): recovering a lost mineralogical catalog

Archival studies in a mineralogical museum not only promote its history but ensure that its records are preserved and available to support the work of its staff as well as to meet the research needs of scholars and the general public. The goal of this work is therefore to illustrate the (re)discovery of Collectio Mineralium (1765), i.e., the catalog of the mineralogical collection belonging to Peter Leopold of Habsburg-Lorraine (1747-1792), Grand Duke of Tuscany (1765-1790) and later Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II (1790-1792). The volume is preserved at the Historical Archive of the University of Firenze Museum System and describes 242 mineralogical specimens mainly coming from today’s Hungarian-Slovak mining district. It is interesting to note that Peter Leopold’s catalog is not listed in any database for bibliographical research so its critical edition (2022) has made available for the first time this extraordinary primary source for the history of mineralogical collecting. The Collectio Mineralium’s publication process consisted not only in transcribing and translating the text into English but also in the editing of a critical apparatus that – besides investigating the cultural, and scientific background of the volume – allows the historical and modern identification of the mineralogical species, the mining areas, and mining processes reported in the catalog. This analysis enables the determination of emergencies no longer known in different sites, as shown by the international reference database MinDat.org. In addition to discussing the above-mentioned aspects, this work compares Collectio Mineralium to the mineralogical catalogs belonging to Holy Roman Emperor Francis I (1708-1765) and Archduchess Maria Anna of Habsburg-Lorraine (1738-1789). Peter Leopold’s father and sister also had private mineralogical collections, both described in catalogs exclusively available in their manuscript form. However, the latter presented minerals collected for scientific and aesthetic purposes, while Peter Leopold’s catalog is one of the first examples of commodity collecting since the specimens were got together as evidence of the quantity of monetary minerals that could be extracted from a specific mining site. These data characterize and distinguish Collectio Mineralium from the other catalogs of Hapsburg-Lorraine mineralogical collections, as shown by the reconstruction of its genesis that can be found in the official visit that Peter Leopold made to the mining districts of Schemnitz and Kremnitz (today’s Banská Štiavnica and Kremnica) in 1764. In conclusion, this work presents not only a new chapter in Peter Leopold’s scientific biography but also brings back to light poorly researched aspects of 18th-century Habsburg mineralogical collecting.