A151 Revision

As a result of the scientific revolution

It was how scientists communicated knowledge

First hand observation - prime source of knowledge

• Private collectors
• Senior church figures
• Aristocracy
• Scholars
• Physicians

Activity related to wealth and status

At first, seemingly random (The Natural History Museum of Ferrante Imperato 1599)

Moving on to early forms of classification - objects grouped by type, with labels and research materials as seen in the Museum of Ole Worm 1655

• Displayed with moral messages
• Ruysch added mottos to confirm human fragility

People were conditioned to ponder God's relationship

It shaped attitudes, approaches and classifications

Collections gave spiritual message

Moral and religious virtues conveyed through science

• Moral Instruction
• Contemplate mortality and the transcience of human life

• Aesthetic Pleasure
• Instil wonder and awe

• Scientific Knowledge
• Promote awareness
• Stimulate a closer study of natural world
• Activities grew out of collecting

• 1655
• Objects were classified
• Many reference books
• Collecting established an experimental culture

• 1638-1731
• Practitioner and physician
• Grotesque and macabre anatomical displays (sign of the times - people weren't 'put off')
• Devised early preserving method - turning body parts into objects
• Opera Omnia - confirmed his as a scholar
• Conversant with high art
• Sold his collection to Peter the Great of Russia

Moral props

Aesthetic devices

Scientific tools

Antidote for atheism

They had a casual attitude to death

Macabre fascination

It broke the established boundaries between disciplines

• Mid 17th Century
• Fostered by outcomes of the Scientific Revolution

Nature is an autonomous self-regulating force

Nature is the product of an intelligent designer

Testimony to existence of God through study of nature

Human body = source of knowledge and vehicle for moral instruction

1593 - Public dissections / anatomical theatre in the Netherlands

Mid 16c - Medical knowledge expanded dramatically

Mid 17c - New philosophical ideas challenged traditional tenets (physio-theology)

1683 - Ashmolean museum opened to the public (ordered into sections, segregated by activity, teaching/study)

1700's - Anatomising human bodies.  Netherlands most advanced med school

19th c - Collections were for public display