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Chapter 152 The school and the mines in the area had become established as a popular destination for the study trips of aspiring mining engineers from various parts of Europe.44 Another individual who played an important part in developing the region’s appeal was Ignaz von Born (1742–91), a nobleman of Transylvanian Saxon origin and one of the shining lights of the Austrian Enlightenment. An eminent mineralogist and a member of several European scientific academies, in the 1770s he himself organized in Prague the Privatgesellschaft, a “private society” regarded as the predecessor of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and arranged in Vienna the imperial natural history cabinet that was the base of the later Museum of Natural History. As grand master of the Viennese lodge Zur wahren Eintracht (For genuine harmony) in the 1780s, von Born was a lead- ing freemason and the author of radical satirical pamphlets on subjects such as monasticism (as we shall see, with Maximilian Hell as an especial target) and bureaucratization, while also an imperial administrator playing important roles in the department of mines and the mint. In this latter capacity, he had a short spell in Banská Štiavnica in 1769–70 as Oberstkammergraf (supervisor of the mines for the imperial chamber) and began collaboration with the profes- sors of the mining academy there. In the 1780s, he returned to nearby Skleno/ Sklené Teplice (Szklenó/Turócnémeti, Glashütte/Glaserhau/Glaserhütte) to continue experiments in the amalgamation of metals begun in the laboratory of the Viennese court pharmacy. The most glorious moment in the region’s eighteenth-century scientific history is probably the gathering of mining and metallurgical experts in Skleno in 1786, interested in von Born’s method. On von Born’s initiative, this meeting resulted in the founding of the famous Soci- ety for the Art of Mining (Societät der Bergbaukunde), a truly international association that soon established chapters in fourteen countries, attracting over 150 members in Europe and America for research in mining and associ- ated industries.45 44 See Peter Konečný, “Cestopisy európskych odborníkov ako forma komunikácie poznania o baníctve a hutníctve v Uhorsku, 1651–1759/Reiseberichte europäischer Fachleute als Kommunikationsform des Wissens über das Berg- und Hüttenwesen im Königreich Un- garn, 1651–1759,” Montánna história 7 (2014): 200–39. 45 On von Born generally, see Helmut Reinalter, ed., Die Aufklärung in Österreich: Ignaz von Born und seine Zeit (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991). On von Born’s work in amalga- mation, see Lothar Suhling, “Von der Alten zur Neuen Welt und zurück: Der Vor- und Frühgeschichte der Europäischen Amalgamation nach Ignaz von Born im Überblick,” in Technik, Arbeit und Umwelt in der Geschichte. Günter Bayerl zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Gün- ter Bayerl, Torsten Meyer, and Marcus Popplow (Münster: Waxmann Verlag, 2006), 77–94. On von Born and the Society, see Günter B. Fettweis and Günther Hamann, eds., Über Ig- naz von Born und die Societät der Bergbaukunde: Vorträge einer Gedenkveranstaltung zur 200; Wiederkehr des Gründungstages im September 1786 der ältesten internationalen