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Origin and history

The Requien Museum is a natural history museum located in Avignon, Vaucluse, founded in 1840 by the naturalist Esprit Requien. Born into a bourgeois family, Requien became passionate about botany, paleontology and malacology from his teens. At the age of 18, he actively participated in Avignon's botanical garden and was a renowned herbarium, gathering collections rich in fossils and natural specimens. His work earned him national recognition, with 75 species dedicated to his name. In 1840, he offered his collections and library to the Calvet Museum, laying the foundations of the Requien Museum.

Esprit Requien, born in 1788 near rue des Lices in Avignon, died in 1851 in Bonifacio. His scientific heritage continues thanks to successive legacies, such as those of Stéphane Clapit (52,829 pieces in petrography and paleontology) and Maurice Lucas (18,390 zoological specimens). The museum was finally installed in 1943 in the Hotel Raphélis-de-Soissans, an 18th-century building renovated between 1972 and 1975. Today, it houses 18,000 works, historic grasslands (including those of Jean-Henri Fabre) and permanent exhibitions such as Plongée dans le temps and Faune vauclusienne.

The Requien Museum is an active research centre associated with national and European projects. Its collections, enriched by donations and acquisitions from the Calvet Foundation, cover regional biodiversity since Prehistory. The private hotel also houses a scientific library, reserves accessible to researchers, and spaces dedicated to local naturalist societies. His treasures include fossil brown bears from Mont Ventoux, Cretaceous ammonites, and pelicier's carabas, bearing witness to the richness of the Vauclusian ecosystems.

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