Frivaldszky, Imre

Imre Frivaldszky was born on the 6th of February 1799 at Bacskó, in Zemplén Shire, Hungary. He began his studies in the highly regarded Piarist College in Sátoraljaújhely where he met the greatest Hungarian botanists of the time. During the many botanical excursions his interest toward natural history deepened and although in 1816 he enrolled as a student in the Budapest University of Medical Sciences, he spent most of his spare time outdoors, studying plants and animals. In 1823, he was awarded with the Doctor of Medicine degree, but he never became a practitioner. Instead, he devoted his life to natural history, especially to the study of Coleoptera. He became a curator of the Hungarian National Museum’s natural history section, and he spent the first 10 years in this office by surveying the flora of the country. The resulting collection was outstanding by European standards, but Frivaldszky – and consequently Hungarian science - benefited even more from this work, as during the...