All posts tagged with objects-of-wonder

Athanasius Kircher, a 17th century German Jesuit scholar whose name translates to “immortal” (from the Greek “Athanasius”) and “church” (from the German-derived “kircher”), was born on 2 May 1602 in Geisa, part the principality of Fulda in the Holy Roman Empire in Europe. The youngest of nine children, Kircher’s family was devoutly Catholic — a complicated religious affiliation at a time when Protestantism was more popular and war broke out between Catholics and the Protestant Lutherans and Calvinists in the form of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Not only did Kircher live during a period of war, but also of witch burnings and plague.

Ole Worm (1588-1654) was the first, and most well-known, collector in Scandinavia during the Renaissance.  In his homeland, Ole was attributed as the founder of the modern disciplines of archaeology, museology, philology, ethnology, and folklore.  Ole’s cabinet of wonder, documented in a catalog of its holdings, Museum Wormianum was the foundation for what would become Denmark’s National Museum.

Cabinets of Wonder: What Are They and Why Were They Created?

The term, “cabinet of wonder”, comes from the term “wunderkammer” (literally meaning “wonder chamber”). The tradition of creating cabinets of wonder began during the Renaissance, the period of time between the 14th and 17th centuries.