The Zallinger cabinet of instruments and scientific books was assembled for his own use by Josef Pieter Zallinger (1730-1805) who stemmed from a family first recorded in Augsburg in the 13th century. He studied philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, concentrating on mathematics and physics, later becoming renowned as an architect and engineer in Tryrol, being responsible for the building of bridges and for various drainage schemes which transformed high-lying valleys and bogs into valuable agricultural land. He was the first to fit lightning conductors to church towers in the Tyrol.
The majority of his instruments were ordered to his own specifications from the eminent Augsburg instrument maker Georg Friedrich Brander. Zallinger himself also adapted and assembled instruments for electrical experiments. Mention is made of his use of electrophors to aid his experiments into lightning conductors. At the time, electricity was considered part of medical science and Zallinger willingly lent his instruments to doctors. He himself successfully extracted a nail painlessly from a child's nose with a magnet weighing 10 Viennese pounds. He was evidently also interested in optics and demonstrations of the properties of light. He is noted as having a valuable concave mirror with which magical views could be projected.
The largest extant group of known instruments by Brander is at the Deutches Museum, Munich, the capital of Bavaria, and the majority of instruments held there stem from the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenshaften which received these instruments from the scientific cabinets of various monastaries consequent on their secularisation in 1803. It is noteworthy that Zallinger's collection at his death in 1805, valued at 5,000fl., was considered comparable with those of various monastaries and leading universities of the time and was much admired by his contemporaries.