Janos Fridvaldszky

* Bratislava, December 13, 1730 – † Szepesváralja, May 3, 1784 / historian, naturalist, canon of Szepes ; ; His father, János Frivaldszky the elder, was the proviso of the Bratislava estate and palace of Prince-Primate Imre Esterházy, and later held the position of city senator. János was the eldest of his five children, who entered the Jesuit order in 1746. He studied philology in Szakolca in 1748–1749, humanities in Vienna in 1750–1751, and natural sciences and mathematics between 1753–1755. He studied theology in Vienna and Nagyszombat between 1757–1761. From 1755 until the dissolution of the Jesuit order (1773), he was a teacher in various Hungarian cities (Buda, Nagyszombat, Bazin, Károlyváros). In 1764, he was transferred to Kolozsvár, the college-ranking academy there, as a mathematics teacher. He was also a church Hungarian religious teacher, order chronicler, and librarian of a library of more than 10,000 volumes. From the 1760s, he no longer wrote his name as Frivaldszky, but as Fridvaldszky. In addition to his teaching work, he conducted regular mineralogical research in Transylvania. The great synthesis of his collecting trips, literature, and archival research is the first Hungarian mineralogical monograph. On page 87 of the book, he describes the mineral he discovered – later called nagyágite by others. Maria Theresa awarded him 100 gold pieces and awarded him with the abbotship. He was involved in dendrological studies. He also achieved noteworthy results in the field of modernizing paper production. ; ; His main works: ; Dissertatio de natura ferri, et ferraris r. Hungariae, ac Transilvaniae, 1766, ; Mineralogia magni principatus Transilvaniae seu metalla, semi-metalla, sulphura, salia, lapides et aquae conscipta, 1767, ; Dissertatio de Skumpia seu Cotino planta coriaria, cum diversis experimentis in M. Principatu Transilvaniae institutis, 1773. In Hungarian: Értekéz a scumpiaár a a Cotenus Coriaria növényól négypte székely székelyben variétés ékperimentés és évényében észékely (translated by Ottokár Székely, supplemented and edited by János Domokos, 1944).