La collezione mineralogica Targioni Tozzetti: indagini su una raccolta naturalistica settecentesca

The litho-mineralogical collection of Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti, made up of minerals, rocks and incoherent earths, currently part of the collections of the Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence, was created starting from that of Pier Antonio Micheli and was expanded by his son Ottaviano, who also updated the scientific information. The collection was object of a previous project, which estimated the remaining specimens of Giovanni at 2687, of which 618 by Micheli, with an unidentified number of specimens added by Ottaviano. Nowadays, the present study is conducted on 154 specimens, including 109 minerals, 39 rocks, a zoological find and five objects of various kinds, with the aim of verifying the cataloguing information and allowing the preparation of an inventory accompanied by images and the creation of a digital catalogue. The study is supported by means of optical microscopy and μ-Raman spectroscopy of 67 precious stones to infer the proper attribution.