Director: Matteo Alvaro
Headquarters: Via Ferrata 1
The University of Pavia's Museum of Mineralogy was founded in the late 18th century by Abbot Spallanzani as an integral part of the larger Pavia Natural History Museum. It currently houses several historical collections acquired in the early 19th century: the collection of agates, carnelians, and worked materials, the collection of jaspers from Eastern Europe, and the collection of minerals from Freiberg, the oldest and most important mining town in Saxony, and the Slovakian town of Banská Štiavnica (Schemnitz in German), home to a highly regarded mining school established in 1735.
Photo: Sulfur (S), crystal association with bipyramidal habitus. Top, header: detail of polychrome Fluorite (CaF2).
Other collections were added in the early 1900s: the Bianchi collection on minerals from the Devero Valley and the regional collection, as well as a valuable collection of systematic mineralogy. Mineralogical collections are also preserved for educational purposes and used in various university courses. Of particular interest is a collection of "ornamental stones" from across the Mediterranean basin, as well as a small collection of meteorites, one of which was collected in the late 18th century by Spallanzani himself near Siena.
The University of Pavia's Mineralogy Museum also houses instruments of historical and scientific interest dating back to the first half of the 20th century. The instruments on display offer insight into original models of instruments from the past, such as the Buerger precession chamber and the powder diffractometer.
It has been part of the University Museum System (Sistema Museale d’Ateneo) since 2005.