page_title: Muséum d'histoire naturelle d'Angers
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Muséum d'histoire naturelle d'Angers / History / Origins
context_page_description: The Muséum des sciences naturelles d'Angers is a municipal museum in Angers. Dedicated to Natural History, the Muséum d'Angers houses in its collections about 530,000 objects, including 3,000 birds, 20,000 shells, 50,000 fossils, 80,000 insects and 350,000 herbarium samples, as well as hundreds of specimens taxidermised or in liquid, skeletons, minerals, technical instruments and Documents. The Muséum d'Angers receives annually about 20,000 visitors, as well as school groups, interns, researchers and volunteers.
context_section_description: Open to the public since 1801, the Muséum d'Angers has a long and rich history.
  The initial nucleus of the collection dates from the French Revolution. By the Decree of 22 November 1790, Gabriel Eleanor Merlet de la Boulaye (1736–1807) is assigned the gathering of all books and natural history collections seized in the national houses. Recovered from the whole region, especially from the houses of emigrants, they are initially stored in Saint Sergius' Abbey, Angers. Unfortunately, they were plundered by the Vendeans who besieged Angers in December 1793.
  In 1795 the Central School of Maine-et-Loire was established in the Barrault House. Joseph-Étienne Renou (1740–1809), collaborator of Merlet, is appointed to the professorship of Natural History and, with what remained of the collections at Saint Sergius' Abbey, forms a natural history collection for teaching in the new school. The collections were enriched thanks to Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux (1753–1824), member of the Directory.
  La Révellière-Lépeaux invited Renou to Paris in 1798, where he was allowed to receive objects from the National Museum of Natural History, including a group of 12 fossil fish brought from Italy (Monte Bolca) by Bonaparte in 1797, which still exists with their original labels.
caption: Portrait of La Révellière-Lépeaux as a botanist, by François Gérard, 1798, Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers
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