Pourquoi les gens collectionnent des trucs ? (Pièces, timbres…)

There is private heritage that concerns notaries and public heritage, regional, national or international, which can be tangible or intangible.

We moved from individual and personal ownership to collective property belonging to everyone.

The same word 'heritage' designates both an inherited soup tureen and a Beethoven sonata, yet these two concepts appear to have nothing to do with each other at first glance.

The video promises to discover how we transitioned from individual property to collective ownership.

Contrary to popular belief, our ancestors did not build things as durable as we think.

• Earthenware dishes often broke during firing and were discarded or crushed on the ground. • Wooden, thatched, or wattle-and-daub houses were torn down when rain penetrated them. • The vast majority of people had very little material heritage.

The difference came down to little: on one side an earthenware pot and a perishable wattle-and-daub shack, on the other an iron pot and a durable cut-stone house.

People rather passed down rights and status, such as being a serf or a free man, than material goods which had an expiration date.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, those who had amassed heritage began to sort it into organized collections.

• From 1499 onwards, Kings Charles VIII and Louis XII collected rare weapons, including a legendary sword of the knight Lancelot du Lac. • A narwhal tooth from the treasury of the Abbey of Saint-Denis, presented as a unicorn horn given by Charlemagne. • These collections had no practical use: the kings did not need 150,000 swords to fight.

Collections served to display wealth and stage themselves, creating a theatre of the world where the greatest kings occupied the center.

During the entry of Henri II and Catherine de Medici into Rouen in 1550, two fake villages imitated Brazil with plants, monkeys and parrots, with the king contemplating both the Old and the New World.

Under the reign of Thutmose III, two rooms were created in the temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak, representing all known animal and plant species of the world, including legendary creatures.

• Archaeologists nicknamed this ensemble the 'Botanical Garden'. • No humans were present, the species did not act and had no narrative. • An inscription specified that everything was represented realistically without any falsity.

Thutmose glorified the god Amun by presenting all his blessings, showing that the god had created fertile land placed under the sandals of the pharaohs.

Everything was placed at the same level, creating a microcosm placed under human gaze and responsibility, forming a cabinet of curiosities, a fashion that had enormous success during the Renaissance.

Many Roman emperors and Frankish kings collected animals, such as Philip VI who established a royal menagerie at the Louvre.

• Renaissance kings in the Loire valley created gardens with local and exotic plants. • These ancestors of French gardens arranged all vegetation in straight lines. • Man created order and harmony against natural chaos.

To sort and organize cabinets of curiosities, a scientific approach was necessary, marking progress in botany, biology, medicine and chemistry.

The Renaissance participated in the creation of new disciplines that did not yet exist, such as numismatics, the science of collecting coins and medals.

Numismatics is the practice of collecting coins or medals, a hobby that became a science requiring dating, comparison and translation of inscriptions.

• One must date the coins and compare them with each other. • Read and translate inscriptions in old French or Latin. • Recognize the people represented: women, kings or deities.

Guillaume Budé, Master of the King's Library, wrote a Latin treatise in 1514 on ancient coins and measures, which Francis I asked him to translate into French, marking numismatics history.

Budé's work spread throughout Europe, creating 'coin cabinets' and 'medal cabinets' wherever numismatics fascinated people.

In 1521, Paolo Giovo founded a building in Borgo-Vico designed solely to house his collections, naming it 'museo' in honour of the muses, goddesses protecting the arts.

The collection became a cabinet, the cabinet became a museum, but it remained private; it would take two centuries for the shift to public access to occur.

• Pope Paul III started the Farnese collection in 1543 which grew from generation to generation. • Elisabeth Farnese bequeathed it to her son Charles III, king of Naples. • Charles III built the Reggia di Capodimonte in 1738, which became the Capodimonte Public Museum in 1950.

The oldest public museum in history was in England: in 1677, antiquarian Elias Ashmole bequeathed his collection to Oxford University, and in 1683 the Ashmolean Museum opened its doors to all.

Numismatics did not merely appear at a moment in history: now it allows us to make history.

• A coin is the reflection of an era, all kingdoms deciding its form, weight and material. • It is a standard, one of the most important social foundations of a society. • It enables exchange and thus travels much between the hands of various social actors.

All coins from the past have something to say about the wealth of societies, their trade links and the period in which they lived.

Numismatics advances history, while modern computer tools of historical science advance numismatics itself.

In 864, Charles the Bald signed the Edict of Pîtres ordering 9 minting workshops to produce a single currency for Western Francia, the Monnaie de Paris being the last still functioning today.

• One of the world's oldest enterprises. • The very last factory still operating in Paris. • The oldest French institution in history.

The Paris and Pessac workshops in Gironde produce a billion coins each year with automation, preserving ancient know-how related to striking.

The Monnaie de Paris employs about fifteen exceptional artistic crafts: engraver, moneyer, polisher, founder, creating current coins, medals, decorations and works of art.

The heritage of the Monnaie de Paris comprises 300,000 objects, far surpassing Renaissance cabinets of curiosities.

• Part is visible online. • The museum and workshop are together, enabling encounters with artisanal crafts. • Demonstrations are regularly organized.

The collections include ancient machines, weights, measures, coins from around the world: Akan weights from Africa, 19th-century Chinese ingots, bronze coins from 3rd-century Alexandria, First World War banknote drafts.

The exhibition covers monetary art, sciences and techniques, history of peoples and economy, with archaeology and sociology featured.

The Monnaie de Paris regularly publishes commemorative coins, the 'Ors de France' trilogy putting its first creation on sale this year.

When the Napoleon Franc replaced the Louis d'Or in the 19th century, its simple and solid system facilitated exchanges internally and abroad, created by Chief Engraver Jacques-Jean Barre.

• The current Chief Engraver Joaquin Jimenez updated the coin to modern tastes. • Many hidden details laden with history were added. • The imperial eagle and royal scepter of Napoleon III's coat of arms are redrawn in a more modern way.

These coins in pure gold or silver carry historical heritage and are collector's items struck in limited quantities, remaining real money to save or pass on to future generations.

A coin is just metal, but we decided it was worth something, like heritage and matriarchy.

• For archaeologists, it is a piece of ruin. • For the historian, it is yellowing parchment. • For the inhabitants of a municipality, it is their church or old bridge that crumbles.

We moved from 'my past', that of private collection, to 'our past', that of monuments and museums, through a simple evolution of perspective.

Heritage became democratized, anything can have value even at the far reaches of the world, even a song, because it is sharing that makes heritage.