Informatica museologica, No. 45-46, 2015.
Recenzija, Prikaz slučaja
MURMUR OF THE SEA – THE EXHIBITION OF THE COLLECTION OF MOLLUSCS FROM DUBROVNIK NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
Ana Kuzman
; Prirodoslovni muzej Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik
Sažetak
The Molluscs Collection is one of the oldest of the collections in the Dubrovnik Natural History Museum. The greatest credit
for its assembly and foundation goes to the founder of the Museum, Antun Drobac and his contemporary Fra Ivan Evanđelist
Kuzmić.
Antun Drobac (1810-1882), apothecary, collector, researcher into natural sciences, president of the Chamber of Commerce
and Trades, member of the city council and ship owner, was a person who several times put both Dubrovnik and the Natural
History Museum in his debt. His wholehearted advocacy of the foundation of the Technical School in Dubrovnik during the
1860s was the trigger that would make the collection of historical and cultural, ethnographic and other valuable objects,
above all naturalia, an obligation to Dubrovnik people at home and abroad.
His original idea about the foundation of the technical school was turned, because of the disapproval of the Viennese
government, into the idea of the founding of a museum, the Museo Patrio, Patriotic Museum. These own collections constituted the Museum’s core, including the collection of molluscs, and with vigorous work and with donations during the following
years the Museum was to expand its holdings.
A contribution to the enrichment of the Molluscs Collection was made by Fra Ivan Kuzmić (1807-1880), apothecary, natural
historian, historian and musician. He made a major study of the bivalves and snails of southern Dalmatia and collected an
extensive collection of molluscs, which in 1857 he donated to the laboratory of the Zadar High School. In 1875 he gave a
collection to the National Museum in Zagreb.
He was a member of the Botanical Association of Vienna, the Horticultural Association in Trieste and the Malacological Association in Brussels. The Collection of Molluscs put together by Drobac and Kuzmić consisted of various objects from different
seas and oceans worldwide. After the death of Drobac, in 1882 the management of the Museum was taken over by Baldo
Kosić (1829-1918), amateur natural historian, collector, hunter and fisherman and preparator.
Kosić’s principle as a natural historian was to found a collection of natural objects from the Dubrovnik area. In the period
from 1890 to 1917 he collected examples of Dubrovnik region molluscs, on the whole snails, bivalves and cephalopods, as
can be seen from his records of the objects collected in Memorandum of various objects arriving in the Dubrovnik Patriotic
Museum from 1882 on. Another person who is to be credited with the supplementation of the collection was the great Croatian natural scientist Spiridion Brusina (1845-1908). An exceptional expert in malacology, during his many years of work he
discovered a hundred or so new species and subspecies of recent snails and bivalves. A testimony to his contribution to the
enrichment of the Collection of Molluscs is Kosić’s account dated July 30, 1904.
The last period of vigorous collection was from 1957, after the Museum was joined to the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and
Arts Biological Institute. Then, when the new Adriatic collections were being formed, the collection was expanded with specimens prepared by the technique of embedding in polyester resin.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
176918
URI
Datum izdavanja:
2.9.2016.
Posjeta: 758 *