Hieronymus Bernoulli-Respinger
(1745-1829)
The mineralogical collections of the Natural History Museum in Basel, Switzerland were founded in the 18th century, and contain many mineral specimens from extinct or destroyed discovery sites. The oldest objects of the "Swiss collection" come from Hieronymus d'Annone (1768), Peter Merian (1825) and the bequest of Hieronymus Bernoulli (1830). The label shown here identifies the specimen as a "Gift from the bequest of Mr. President Hieron[ymus] Bernoulli, the father [elder], 1830." (Hieronynus Bernoulli the younger was born in 1769 and became a prominent pharmacist and naturalist.) Today the museum collection contains over 50,000 mineral specimens, 2,000 gemstones and 10,000 ore samples.
