CABINETS OF CURIOSITIES

All knowledge, the cosmos arranged on shelves, in cupboards, or hanging from the ceiling, infinite riches in a little room such were the cabinets of curiosities of the 17th century. This survey, now available in a compact edition, traces the amazing history of cabinets of curiosities, from their first appearance in the inventories and engravings commissioned by Renaissance nobles such as t he Medici or the Hapsburgs, via those of the Dane Ole Wurm and the Italian polymath Athanasius Kircher, to the serious 17th- and 18t h-century sc...[Read more]