Cabinets of Curiosities: Compact edition - Hardcover

Mauriès, Patrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500022887 ISBN 13: 9780500022887

Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2019

Synopsis

‘Weird and wonderful … like a catalogue for the repository of the most freakish flights of scientific imagination’ The Times

About this title

About the Author

Patrick Mauriès is a writer and publisher of many notable titles on fashion and design, including Jewelry by Chanel, A Cabinet of Rarities, The World According to Karl and Fashion Quotes to name a few, all published by Thames & Hudson.

From the Back Cover

Unicorns' horns, mermaids' skeletons, stuffed and preserved animals and plants, precious metals, clocks, scientific instruments, celestial globes--all knowledge, the whole cosmos, arranged on shelves in a single room. Such were the cabinets of curiosities of the seventeenth century, the last period of history when man could aspire to know everything. The collectors were archdukes and kings--the Emperor Rudolf II was the prince of all collectors--rich merchants and scholars, and their collections ranged from a single crowded room to whole palatial suites. Cabinets of Curiosities traces the amazing history of these unique spaces, receptacles, and fascinating contents within, from their first appearance in the inventories and engravings commissioned by Renaissance noble families, such as the Medicis or the Hapsburgs, via those of the Dane Ole Wurm and the German polymath Athanasius Kircher, to the seventeenth-century scientist Elias Ashmole and Dutch collector Levinus Vincent. Author Patrick Maurie`s chronicles the amazing history of these rooms of wonders in this ingeniously erudite survey. Not many of the rooms survive, but there are pictorial records and their contents still exist and are among the treasures of museums all over the world.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0500022887
• ISBN 13: 9780500022887
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256