Museo di Storia Naturale (Trieste)
Civico Museo di Storia Naturale is the municipal museum of natural history of Trieste .
location
The Natural History Museum is currently located in Palazzo Biserini on Piazza Attilio Hortis in the Borgo Giuseppino district (Josephstadt). Other public institutions such as the Biblioteca Civica Attilio Hortis and the Museo Petrarchesco Piccolomineo are housed in the building. Due to the limited space available, it is planned to relocate the museum to Palazzo Carciotti on the Grand Canal in the coming years . The botanical garden on Via Marchesetti is attached to the museum.
history
In 1796 a group of citizens in Trieste joined forces to form the Società di Amici della Scienza Naturale ( Society for Friends of the Natural Sciences ), which in 1846 founded the Gabinetto Zoologico-Zootomico ( Cabinet of Animal Science and Animal Anatomy ). The Swiss businessman Heinrich Koch (1815–1881) took over the management of the originally private establishment. The seat of the museum was in the Contrada del Lazzaretto Vecchio (today Via Lazzaretto Vecchio).
On February 9, 1852, the institution of the municipality of Trieste was founded and placed under the patronage of the mayor of Trieste, Mutius von Tommasini . Due to the steadily growing collections and the limited space available, the museum moved to Palazzo Biserini in Piazza Lipsia (today Piazza Attilio Hortis) in 1856 . In the course of moving the museum in honor of Archduke was Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria in Civico Museo Ferdinando Massimiliano renamed.
In 1903 the Botanical Garden of Trieste was attached to the Natural History Museum.
exhibition
The museum's collection focuses on exhibits from paleontology , geology , mineralogy , zoology and botany .
Paleontology, geology and mineralogy
In the paleontology collection, specimens from the neighboring karst are exhibited. Of particular importance are the fossil remains of a 75 million year old carnivorous dinosaur from the nearby Villaggio del Pescatore near Duino-Aurisina and the bones of numerous cave bears ( Ursus spelaeus ) from the last Ice Age . The reptile department shows, among other things, the Carsosaurus Marchesetti , a sea lizard from the Cretaceous period . In 1999, an area of the paleontological collection was devoted to human evolution, with numerous Java human skeletons . In addition, there are some Egyptian mummies and a sarcophagus from around 1000 BC. Exhibited.
zoology
The zoological collection contains an important entomology department with over 500,000 insects, most of which come from Friuli Venezia Giulia . The ichthyology department is specifically devoted to marine animals of the northern Adriatic and includes some sharks , including a 5-meter long white shark . In the collection of the Osteichthyes a rare example is Quastenflosser ( Coelacanthus ) exhibited that of the west coast of Comoros comes Islands. The zoological collection also includes amphibians , reptiles , birds and numerous mammals .
botany
The museum's botanical collection is particularly dedicated to the karst flora . The botanical collection also includes the Trieste Botanical Garden on Via Marchesetti, where characteristic plants from Venezia Giulia grow.
Research and education
Some rooms in the museum are reserved for research and study purposes. In addition to some laboratories, the museum has a library with over 50,000 scientific books and journals.
Web links
- Official website of the municipal natural history museum
- Information about the collections of the Natural History Museum (English)
Coordinates: 45 ° 38 ′ 48.4 " N , 13 ° 45 ′ 53.4" E