Six specimens from the Victor Emmanuel collection
Unfortunately, documents that gave us a better understanding about the history of the ornamental stone collection from Italy, which can be found at the Department of Mineralogy and Petrology of the HNHM, were destroyed in 1956. These specimens are provided by labels containing their origin, locality and commercial name. According to a note in the centenary volume of the Hungarian National Museum, the collection was donated by Victor Emmanuel II (1820–1878), King of Italy, through the intervention of Béla Graenzenstein (1847–1913). Presumably this material is either the same or a very similar sample collection as the one exhibited at the Vienna World Exhibition of 1873. At the event, Graenzenstein was in charge of managing the section of mining and it is also known that King Victor Emmanuel visited there.
Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy (1820–1878)
Source: Wikipedia (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tranquillo_Cremona_-_Vittorio_Emanuele_II.jpg)
The collection consists of nearly 400 pieces of 20.5 × 10.5 × 5.5 cm, brick-shaped polished rocks and a few polished slabs. It was sometimes referred as a “collection of Italian marble”, however, it accounts for only a few specimens of real marble, most of them are massive limestone (which also called marble in commercial word usage). The decorative pattern is a result of the brecciated structure (bottom left and middle on the picture showing a selection of six specimens), fossils (bottom right) etc. Massive spring calcite, incorrectly called as alabaster (top middle), showing banded texture, is also spectacular. Igneous rocks (such as syenite, top right), which are practically all called granite in commerce, are relatively rare. Metamorphic rocks are represented mainly by (the real) marble, however, our beautiful serpentinite specimens (top left) are also remarkable.
The prosperity of the Italian decorative stone industry was due to the geological conditions of the country and the old traditions of utilization, as in the ancient Rome, oppositely Greece, rocks decorated the buildings instead of paintings.
Béla Graenzenstein (1847–1913)
Source: OSZK EPA (http://keptar.oszk.hu/036400/036428)
The Victor Emmanuel collection was exhibited in three glass cabinets in the classic exhibition organized during Krenner’s era (1870–1919). After World War II, only s few specimens remained there as decorative objects. When the collection moved to the main building of the former Ludovika Military Academy, it was neatly placed in custom-made neon-lit cabinets installed between the massive pillars dividing the room of the rock collection.
As the National University of Public Service received the place of the Department of Mineralogy and Petrology in 2013, our whole material was moved to the basement and now the Victor Emmanuel collection stands on the corridor outside the storage room of the rock collection.