Wunderkammer
Cabinets of curiosities, or Wunderkammer, were collections of natural specimens and artifacts that Europeans cherished as rare objects. With the expansion of Europe’s colonial territories, these collections began to incorporate objects from diverse regions across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Cabinets of curiosities are a prime example of how the “Scientific Revolution” was a global phenomenon, influenced by and developed in a variety of regions, cultures, and reservoirs of knowledge.
Museo Cospiano (Catalogue of the Cospi Museum)
1677
This illustration depicts the Museo Cospiano in Bologna, a large collection of natural specimens owned by Bolognian aristocrat Marquis Ferdinando Cospi. Cabinets of curiosities such as this became a widespread European phenomenon as collectors started to acquire a wide breadth of objects and as Europeans started to share trials and testimonies of their travels. This image gives a sense of the breadth of artifacts that were housed in cabinets of curiosities, from animal hides to shells to strange minerals and gemstones.
Museum Wormianum (The Museum of Ole Worm)
1655
This rendering of a cabinet of curiosities portrays a collection that was pieced together by a Danish physician named Ole Worm. It contains a variety of aquatic and terrestrial organisms, foreign tools, and natural elements such as metals and seashells. Interestingly, the collection contains a human form that appears to be wearing indigenous clothing, demonstrating the increasing interest Europeans took in racial and cultural differences as they began to catalog and collect knowledge from faraway lands across the globe.