Models
As a confirmation of the Museum's vocation for teaching since its early years, numerous models of the crystallographic forms of minerals are preserved.
These teaching aids are made mainly of two materials: wood (about 300 models) and brass. In the second case, these are models made in the 1920s by Ignazio and Felice Gori, "machinists" of the Museum.
For the history of Mineralogy, the beginnings of the nineteenth century are crucial: from the generic description of the external aspect of the specimen we shift to the "species", on an essentially chemical basis to which a "primitive form" is closely linked. Hence the need, in the exhibition, not only to change the tags with the new nomenclature, but to arrange at the beginning of each species the primitive form, represented precisely by a model.
Nowadays the way of teaching and its aids have totally changed. Nonetheless, our valuable collection of teaching tools are a precious testimony to the evolution of Mineralogy and the way it has been taught.
Last update
11.10.2021