Have a look to the RESULTS of the prizes competition "Vote... The Best"...

And now... the FINAL of the prizes competition "Vote... The Best"! Within this phase, you've to perform the most difficult choice among the 15 finalists and select your favourite as the best specimen and the best photo of the whole Collection. You have 2 weeks to make your choice! On next 11th of July the winners and the prizes of the competition will be drawn. I still recommend to all the partecipants to write their email in the corresponding textbox; in the last round, in fact, I continued to receive many "anonimous" votes and your email is the only way I can identify the partecipants, draw the winners and contact them to ship the prizes. Good luck !

Here we are! This is the third and last round of our prizes competition "Vote... The Best". You can find here 15 new specimens, divided into 5 groups, where you have to select the last five finalists for both the category of the best specimen and the best photo...

It's time to start with the second round of the prizes competition "Vote... The Best", where you can win three collectible specimens by simply voting your favourites in a selected list of minerals and photos of my Collection. In the "Round 2" page you can also have a look to the results from the first round and the present ranking. Warning: I received many votings without the Email. Please note that the Email is the only way I have to list all the partecipants, to draw the prizes and to contact the winners and ship the minerals. Thus, I recommend to all the partecipants to insert this data in the correspondig textbox. I assure it will be used only to partecipate to the competition...

I've received a lot of positive comments about the photos of this Website and I wish to thank all of you who spent some time to write his notes and show his own appreciation. I often wonder what specimen or even what photo can be considered "the best" in my collection, but...

This month the updates concern, as usual, the Wallpaper section, where you can find eight new pictures at high resolution, now devoted to the green colour: tourmaline, titanite, dioptase, demantoide, diopside, vesuviana, epidote... there is enough for everyone! Within the Collection, the new entries are: an amazing Dioptase from Kaokoveld, a very nice sceptre of Quartz from Slovakia and an awesome specimen of Benitoite, a mineral I was looking for a long time. Have a look to the single cards, by clicking on the pictures below! I add a special page to a Guest Star coming from the Travaglini Collection: a spectacular sceptre of Amethyst from the famous Capurru Quarry, Osilo, Sardinia.

Dioptase - Kaokoveld	Quartz - Stivnica	Benitoite - San Benito	*** Guest Star ***

During the last month, the collection increased because of the awaited Bologna Mineral Show (held between the 26th and the 28th of March) and some other purchases made on the Web. In this page you can have a sneak preview of all the new entries (with the links to the corresponding full-pages) and a general comment (very personal, indeed) on the show itself.

Long since the photography is recognized as a true form of "Art". And the photography of Minerals, due to both the beauty of the subjects and the notable technical difficulties, requires an uncommon capability and a great passion. As I've already said in the Wallpaper section, the present availability of many sophisticated digital cameras gives a chance to everyone to obtain very nice pictures with a limited effort and at a reasonable price. However, when the crystals meet a true artist of photography, then the results can really leave out of breath...

This website updates concern the two sections Wallpapers and About Us. I've dedicated the month of April to the "red" color and the pictures (at high definition) you can download here refer to some astonishing spessartine coming from Asia, an Uvite from Brazil, a Cinnabar from China and a Spinel from Burma. The news about my mineralogical skill now include my dear friends Fabio Tamagnini and Paolo Rossi (R&T Minerals): thanks to their own activity, my collection was notably enriched during the last years, by many aesthetic specimens coming from China and other important localities. Have a look to the news, by using the Main Menu!

Here we are... Let's start!
I've spent a lot of months by taking pictures of my crystals, by studying the fundamental techniques of the Web programming, by realizing all the suitable graphic elements, by writing the file cards for minerals and on many other shrewdnesses, more or less important. And now I'm ready to show to the World the results of such an exhausting work! I don't know who and how many people are going to visit these pages, but I have to admit that (no matter what happens) I look at this site with a notable satisfaction...

First of all, I have to point out an important aspect. This site has no commercial aims. It has not been realized to sell minerals (although I've included a Shop section in the Menu that I'm going to discuss later). The main aim of this site is very simple: I would like to share with the other fans of minerals my emotions and feelings in looking at all the specimens I've collected in approximately 30 years. In fact, the slogan of the site is just "Look and Feel the World of Crystals"! Furthermore, far-back I made the decision to somehow catalogue and arrange the specimens of the collection, and the technology offered by the Net offered to me the opportunity to achieve this goal by sharing it, at the same time, with millions of people! Thus, if you want to go into such a marvelous World right away, you can click on Collection in the Main Menu (see above) and browse the collection by using one of the available criteria...
The same Menu includes some other simple item. The About us section, for instance, includes some information about me and my love for minerals and the Wallpaper section make some high resolution picture available to who is interested in using it as a possible desktop wallpaper; in the Links you can find some useful and interesting websites on minerals, while in the section you are seeing just now I hope to include (with a sort of periodicity) all the News concerning the collection or other informations (Mineral Shows, searching activities and so on) worthy to be reported. Pertaining to the Shop, I hope (in the next future) to be able to insert some specimen which is going out from the collection (probably due to some new acquisition) and then I can dismiss.

At present, the site is not completed. Beyond the Shop section (characterized by a rather sad "Under Construction" logo), some mineral file card is still missing and some pictures are probably to be replaced. I have also noted that the view of many pictures strictly depends (more than I expected) on the monitor, its own setup, the adopted graphic resolution, etc. Anyway, I will do my best to update the site, by inserting the missing contents, improving the existing ones and (hopefully) adding new items, in the attempt of making the site "alive" and interesting for all of you.

I am aware that such a virtual journey into a mineral collection (no matter how well-done the pictures could be) cannot provide the guest with the same emotions arising from a direct view of the crystals, but if you will be able to feel just a small fraction of the interest and enthusiasm I felt in realizing this site, it means it was worthy it...

HAVE FUN !!