Trust God but lock your door. Thefts and recoveries of minerals at the Florentine Natural History Museum between the 18th and 19th centuries

The work focuses on a topic that may escape the attention of scholars and legal practitioners: the crime involving museum mineralogical specimens. Nonetheless, the transnational and wealth dimension of this black market is evidenced by forums such as ‘The Lost and Stolen Specimen’ on MinDat.org where diverse museums (e.g., Fallbrook Gem and Mineral Museum) spread the news of stolen samples and ask for information leading to their recovery. In detail, the work examines the historical roots of this phenomenon by investigating the illicit acts committed at the Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History in Firenze from its foundation in 1775 to 1868. The analysis of untapped sources preserved at the Historical Archive of the Galileo Museum revealed that 1045 crimes concerning naturalistic specimens were reported to museum management and local authorities during this period. Because of their scientific, economic, and forensic relevance, the work examines the theft of minerals perpetrated by Ferdinando Raddi in 1818, the thievery of three carved emeralds in 1850, and a robbery of various gold and platinum specimens occurred in 1867. The research carried out at the Historical Archive of the University of Firenze Museum System has allowed the reconstruction of the collecting history of the stolen specimens. Through the examination of the ancient inventories and registers, it was possible to discover that some of them were returned and today are still part of the museum’s collections. The analysis of the aforementioned criminal cases outlined the gradual development of security measures to prevent the misappropriation of mineralogical specimens, such as placing display cases on the shelves, padlocks, and removing the most valuable minerals from the permanent exhibition. Furthermore, this work pointed out how the cataloging of the mineralogical collections was considered not only a tool to report the results of the forensic investigations – e.g., removing the stolen specimens from the general museum catalog highlighting their missing with the term ‘involato’ (stolen) – but also as a preventive measure to monitor the status of the mineralogical collections, providing updated data to local authorities in case of suspected criminal misconducts. In conclusion, this work shows the importance of keeping the spotlight on the vulnerability factors that may affect mineralogical specimens in a museum context, stressing the use of proper methods and practices useful to their mitigation.