Biography
He was born into a noble family of Translyvanian Saxon origin. Educated in a Jesuit college in Vienna, he was for sixteen months a member of the order, but left it and studied law at the Prague University. Then he traveled extensively in 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 (German: 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 criticized 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. He took an active part in the political changes in Hungary. After the death of the emperor Joseph II, the diet of the states of Hungary rescinded many innovations of that ruler, and conferred the rights of denizen on several persons who had been favorable to the cause of the Hungarians, and, amongst others, on Born.
In 1771, von Born was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
In 1781 Born proposed that Austria undertake a scientific voyage round the world, emulating those of Cook. Born himself hoped to lead the expedition, but the poor state of his health meant that he had to relinquish the post of leader in favour of Franz Josef Maerter, who was accompanied by Franz Boos. Subsequently, in July 1789, Born recommended Thaddaeus Haenke to the Spanish Government for appointment as botanist on the Malaspina expedition.
At the time of his death in 1791, he was employed in writing a work entitled Fasti Leopoldini, probably relating to the prudent conduct of Leopold II, the successor of Joseph, towards the Hungarians.
As an active free mason in lodge "Benevolence" introduced and tutored Mozart into the lodge. Born was also the regional head of the Viennese Illuminati lodge, and was a sympathizer with the enlightenment ideas of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. He published an anticlerical satire called Monachologien in 1783, in which he depicts monks as being of a distinct race that is a mixture between ape and man.
The mineral bornite (Cu5FeS4), a common copper ore mineral was named in his honour.
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