General Introduction…This blog consists of 10 chapters (so far) discussing wunderkammern of Austria and Germany that can be visited today, despite being up to 450 years old. In typical blog format, the first posting (chapter) is listed last and the last one to be written, this one, first. Please refer to the Table [...]
July 18th, 2009
About 6 hours south of Kassel, and on the other side of the Alps is the beautiful city of Innsbruck, Austria, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and nestled in a lush green valley ablaze, in early May, with the cherry and lilac blossoms.
It is here that Hapsburg Archduke Ferdinand II (1529-1595) moved to in 1564, [...]
July 2nd, 2009
Kassel is about 2 hours east of Halle by car. Here the noble family, the Landgraves of Hessen-Kassel, presided over a prosperous community for centuries and, not surprisingly, reflected their good fortune in the family wonder chamber.
Their collection was begun by Landgrave Wilhelm “the Wise” (Wilhelm IV who died 1597), continued by his [...]
June 24th, 2009
Halle is about a 1 ½ hours’ drive northwest of Dresden. This is the home of the Francke Foundation and its cabinet of curiosities and artifacts.
Founded in 1698 by Lutheran theologian and educator August Herman Francke (1663-1727), the Foundation was first and foremost an orphanage and secondly a progressive school for all social classes. [...]
June 11th, 2009
Although only an hour’s drive from our last stop, Waldenburg, the wunderkammern of Dresden are clearly in another world.
Despite being firebombed to ruble by the Allies during World War II, Dresden has arisen from the ashes miraculously to its former baroque glory and today houses two, not one, over-the-top wunderkammern. The Historic Green [...]
June 3rd, 2009
About 3 hours by car northeast of Landshut (our last stopover) and say 4 to 5 hours from Munich is the little town of Waldenburg, Germany (formally, East Germany) which houses an appealing wunderkammer, the Cabinet of Natural Sciences. The wunderkammern discussed in the last two chapters in Munich and Landshut were both [...]
May 31st, 2009
Installed in the 13th century Trausnitz Castle, overlooking the town of Landshut, about 50 miles northeast of Munich is the wunderkammer begun by the Bavarian Duke Wilhelm V (1548-1626), Duke Albrecht V’s son. When Wilhelm assumed the title of duke in 1579, he moved his whole household including his collection to Munich, joining [...]
May 24th, 2009
The wunderkammer of Bavarian Duke Albrecht V (1528-1579) was one of the grandest 1st period ones ever built. It housed over 3500 items and was installed over the ducal stables in several rooms, some of which were over 100 feet long (MacGregor, p13-15). Reportedly it consisted of both naturalia and artificialia, and according [...]
May 16th, 2009
THEMES
Generally there were few rules governing the creation of a wunderkammer. 1) Be broad in your collecting. These after all were renaissance men. But the impetus to be broad was more than good manners. Consultants in this field back then advised you to be so broad that you were creating [...]
May 9th, 2009
Imagine what Europeans experienced during the age of discovery, roughly 1500 to 1550 AD. New continents were being discovered and the world was being shown to be a far more diverse and complex…and wonderful …place than originally thought. Ships were frequently returning from uncharted lands, their holds crammed full of strange and wondrous [...]
November 9th, 2009
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