Organizing the curiosity cabinet

 I wish that curiosity cabinets were back in style. It seemed that everyone in the Renaissance had one.

Athanasius Kircher, who kepts the independent scholars of the 17^th century in touch, used to go on tours to examine the curiosity cabinets of interesting thinkers. Kircher would then write letters, reporting to his network of correspondents on who was studying what. That network strikes me as a vital. It was not just a general interest in empirical or experimental knowledge. It was the idea that sharing information that can be verified helps researchers who are interested in different fields.

I got interested in cabinets of curiosities through Sir Thomas Browne, whose own “cabinet of rarities” contained wonders.

I think this sort of things appeals to a certain cast of mind. If you tend to collect things, you’re interested in collecting. And part of collecting is organizing. 

Macfarlane filled in a detail about how the cabinets were organized:

• Naturalia — items from nature.

• Arteficialia — ingenious items made by humans.

• Scientifica — scientific instruments.

• Exotica — wonders from afar, often from the New World.

• Mirabilia — things that just seemed miraculous.

It was kind of a Dewey Decimal Classification of the day.

• Robert Macfarlane, Landmarks; London: Penguin Books, 2016, p. 216.