Galerie de Minéralogie et de Géologie

The Gallery of Mineralogy and Geology (in French, galerie de Minéralogie et de Géologie) is a part of the French National Museum of Natural History (Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, MNHN). It is situated in the Jardin des plantes ('Garden of the Plants') in Paris near the gare d'Austerlitz train station. The gallery displays a collection of crystals, gemstones and minerals parmi les plus anciennes et les plus prestigieuses du monde ('among the oldest and the most prestigious in the world').

The collection is older than the building. It began in 1625, when minerals with medicinal properties were deposited in le droguier du roi ('the royal drug cabinet'). Thereafter, the droguier and its minerals were moved to the Jardin royal des plantes médicinales ('Royal Garden of the Medicinal Plants'), founded in 1635 under the rule of Louis XIII. The Jardin royal des plantes médicinales, as a location, corresponds in the present day to the still existing Jardin des plantes, but as an institution it nowadays corresponds to the French National Museum of Natural History. In 1635, when the Royal Garden was being founded, the mineral collections and the royal drug cabinet were transported to a château situated in the same property as the garden itself. In the same year, the so-mentioned château was also destined to receive the cabinet du roi (the 'Royal Cabinet of Curiosities'). Later, during the reign of Louis XIV, the mineralogical collection of the cabinet du roi was enriched on the orders of the king and put on public display as of 1745.

Years later the French Revolution broke out, spanning from 1789 to 1799. During the period, on June 1793, the revolutionaries who were ruling France transformed the Jardin royal des plantes médicinales into the still existing Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, but at this point in time the mineralogical and geological samples remained in the old cabinet du roi. After the French Revolution and after the reign of Napoleon, monarchy in France was back and ruled the country again. It was not until the reign of Louis Philippe I that a new building was planned in order to receive the mineralogy collections. Construction works started in 1833 and the new building was inaugurated in 1837 in the presence of the king. This building, designed by architect Charles Rohault de Fleury and still currently in use to show to the public the mineralogical collections, was the first in France to be designed as a museum. The building is partitioned, contiguously, into three different parts: a central nave originally destined to receive the mineralogy and geology collections, and two wings, one on the right-hand side of the central nave, the other on the left-hand side. The right-hand wing was originally intended to receive the Muséum's main library, as still stated in the right-side pediment of the building, where the word Bibliothèque ('Libray') still can be read. The left-side wing of the building was originally destined to receive the Muséum's herbarium, but a new nearby building, the galerie de Botanique ('Gallery of Botany'), was inaugurated in 1935 with the purpose of preservation of all Muséum's vegetal samples, so the herbarium left its old allocated location and was sent to the new one, where it is still preserved.

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Wikipedia