The Origins of Museums

A comprehensive account of an extraordinary phenomenon which developed in 16th- and 17th-century Europe - the "cabinet of curiosities" or "Wunderkammer" - in which are to be found the beginnings of museums as we know them. Cabinets reflected all the intellectual curiosity of the age, not only through the complex philosophical principles on which they were based, but also the ambitious nature of their aims: in them their creators sought to encapsulate testimonies of the products of the "artificial" world made by the hand of man. Now in its second edition, this text seeks to provide a basis for the study of this fascinating chapter in human endeavour. Scholars from around the world describe the activities and achievements of numerous collectors, drawing comparisons of their aims, their methods and sources of acquisition, and the principles they employed in display, cataloguing and publication.