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Concept
Ignaz von Born
Summary
Ignaz Edler von Born, also known as Ignatius von Born (Born Ignác, Ignațiu von Born, Ignác Born) (26 December 1742 in Alba Iulia, Grand Principality of Transylvania, Habsburg monarchy – 24 July 1791 in Vienna), was a mineralogist and metallurgist. He was a prominent freemason, being head of Vienna's lodge and an influential anti-clerical writer. He was the leading scientist in the Holy Roman Empire during the 1770s in the age of Enlightenment.
His interests include mining, mineralogy, palaeontology, chemistry, metallurgy and malacology.
Born belonged to a noble family of Transylvanian Saxon origin. He started school in his hometown, then was educated in a Jesuit college in Vienna, but left the Jesuits after sixteen months to study law at Prague University. He then travelled extensively to present-day Germany, the Netherlands, and France, studying mineralogy, and on his return to Prague in 1770 entered the department of mines and the mint.
In 1776 he was appointed by Maria Theresa to arrange the imperial museum at Vienna (K.k. Hof-Naturalienkabinette, the predecessor of today's Naturhistorisches Museum), where he was nominated to the council of mines and the mint, and continued to reside until his death.
He introduced a method of extracting metals by amalgamation (Uber des Anquicken der Erze, 1786), and other improvements in mining and other technical processes. His publications also include Lithophylacium Bornianum (1772–1775) and Bergbaukunde (1789), besides several museum catalogues.
Born attempted satire with no great success. Die Staatsperücke, a tale published without his knowledge in 1772. He criticised state bureaucracy in this work. And an attack on Father Hell, the Jesuit, and king's astronomer at Vienna, are two of his satirical works. Part of a satire, entitled Monachologia, in which the monks are described in the technical language of natural history, is also ascribed to him.
Born was well acquainted with Latin and the principal modern languages of Europe, and with many branches of science not immediately connected with metallurgy and mineralogy.
Official source
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