According to the decision of Empress Maria Theresa on December 13, 1762, the High Mining School with the Department of Chemistry, Mineralogy and Metallurgy was established in 1763 in Banská Štiavnica, whose first Professor was Mikuláš Jozef Jacquin. Three years later, the Department of Mathematics, Mechanics and Hydraulics was created with the first professor, Mikuláš Poda.
In 1770, a third department was added, for mining art and mining law, and that’s when the school got the name Banicka akademia. The founding of the college culminated in efforts to educate highly qualified technicians in mining, metallurgy and related fields. The fact that Banská Štiavnica became its headquarters documents the importance of this city in the development of mining and mining technology in Slovakia. It was the first technical university in the world.
The Mining Academy gradually became the cradle of European chemical, mineralogical and metallurgical research in the 18th century. Its success resulted from the application of new scientific principles and technological procedures, as well as working hypotheses, in accordance with the achieved exact results, which became a compass for further systematic research direction. The Academy became famous for the introduction of experimental methods based on measurement and weighing, which significantly contributed to revolutionary changes in the understanding of chemical processes, to the promotion of the oxidation Lavoisier theory and to the defeat of phlogiston ideas about the combustion of substances.
A significant fact in the history of the Mining Academy was that, since it inception, leading positions were held by important and internationally recognized personalities who could ensure not only theoretical and practical teaching, but also high-level research activities linked to production practice. In the first decades, leading positions at the Department of Chemistry, Mineralogy and Metallurgy were held by Mikulaš Jozef Jacquin, Giovanni Antonio Scopoli and Anton Leopold Ruprecht.
The high international recognition achieved by A.L. Ruprecht in the 18th century was also reflected in the implementation of the “Millenium Project” of the Federation of European Chemical Sciences (FECS) – the creation of a list of the 100 most prominent European chemists of the 18th to 20th centuries. The “Millennium Project” was developed and implemented at the initiative of the FECS to celebrate the 100 most outstanding European chemists at the turn of the millennium according to established criteria. 12 nominees made it to the official FECS list in the 18th century, among them A.L. Ruprecht.
Although the Mining Academy ceased to exist in 1918 with the formation of the Czechoslovak Republic, its impact on the fields of chemistry, metallurgy, and related research in Europe remains profound.
