Projects and Publications

During the restoration of the Leopoldina's main building, restorers discovered a former ritual room of the Masonic Lodge on the first floor, whose elaborate and artistically valuable wall and ceiling paintings had been painted over with white paint. After raising private donations through the Friends of the Leopoldina, the room was renovated between 2014 and 2018. As the room is located in a place in the building that is difficult to access, access is only possible under strict conditions and in small groups. In order to nevertheless convey a certain impression of the room, it was digitised in 2024, again with funding from the Leopoldina Akademie Freundeskreis e.V., so that digital access, supplemented by a little explanatory contextual information, is now possible.

The aim of the 3D visualisation project is to comprehensively document and present the condition of the building and its holdings at the end of 2024. However, it is not intended to make groups of holdings or individual volumes accessible for use. The focus is on visualising the structural conditions and the current situation of the holdings. The 3D visualisation therefore also shows empty shelves in order to illustrate the actual conditions. For a better visualisation of the building structure - with six storage levels at the back and two at the front - a part of the building was selected that allows a detailed view of two floors.

The Miscellanea Curiosa Medico-Physica Academiae Naturae Curiosorum, published by the Leopoldina from 1670 to the present day (under various titles, today as the NAL conference), is the oldest medical and scientific journal in the world. From the very beginning, the articles served the Academy's overarching goal of collecting medical and scientific findings of the time. The Miscellanea Curiosa offer a unique source for the history of the natural sciences since the late 17th century. The entire corpus of the first 100 or so years of publication includes around 16,000 individual documents in Latin known as Observationes ("Observations"), of which around 8,000 are reprints (some variants) and translations.

The Leopoldina archive houses a unique collection of member portraits. These were compiled over centuries and stored in register volumes. Eight of these volumes have been preserved. They cover the period from 1652 to 1935 and contain almost 1,400 portraits, which were the source material for the exhibition. The register volumes themselves are being shown for the first time as authentic source works.

The archives of the city of Schweinfurt and the Leopoldina house a large number of authentic and unique sources on the history of the Academy, which were first shown in Halle and later in Schweinfurt in collaboration with the Museum Otto Schäfer as part of this exhibition. The exhibition is divided into four consecutive sections, with a total of 44 individual objects on display. In contrast to earlier exhibitions and publications, one of the main focuses is on the early internationalisation of the Academy. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with 118 illustrations and an edition of all imperial documents from 1677 to 1742.

Prof Dr Kurt Mothes (1900-1983), important natural scientist and XXII President of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, was born in Plauen and spent formative childhood and youth years here. Around 2,500 photographs from the private collection of the German botanist document this period (1918-1940), but above all his activities in the youth movement and the many excursions from Lapland to Corsica.
The exhibition was curated by the Leopoldina Archive, which owns the image collection.

Honouring scientific excellence has always been one of the very special tasks of a learned society, including the Leopoldina, which was founded in Schweinfurt in 1652. Today, the various awards are presented to deserving scientists at the annual meeting, the most important event in the Academy's annual calendar. This is based on a tradition that dates back to the end of the 18th century. In the 20th century, Halle artists Karl Müller, Gustav Weidanz, Gerhard Lichtenfeld and Bernd Göbel worked for the Leopoldina and created outstanding works of German medallic art, which were presented in their entirety for the first time in the exhibition.