Cabinet of Natural History Collections

Glass models

The glass artifacts produced by Leopold Blaschka (1822-1895) and his son Rudolf (1857-1939) of Dresden are an example of the subtle distinction between art and science. These two talented artists created a large amount of artifacts destined for prestigious institutes and universities, such as the Zoological Institute in Vienna or Harvard University in Massachusetts.

The father’s ability in glass processing was initially used to produce botanical models and then destined for the creation of animal preparations, such as coelenterates, which are difficult to store except in alcohol, a medium in which they lose color and body turgor.

Together, father and son created extremely refined objects in large numbers. However, very little of their production reached Italy and only a few natural history museums and institutes managed to acquire their works.

The collection present in the Museum of the Science and Technology Foundation and consisting mainly of sciphozoans, annelids and echinoderms, was acquired in the 1880s. Originally composed of 118 exhibits, it has reached our days almost complete and is now considered the richest in our country and one of the most considerable and homogeneous in the world.

Back to “Collections”