"Physica Sacra," Johannes Jacob Scheuchzer, 1731: Guest Post for The New York Academy of Medicine "Books, Health and History" Blog

In the run-up to the New York Academy of Medicine's upcoming Wonder Cabinet and Medical History Festival (co-curated by Morbid Anatomy and Lawrence Weschler; more here) I have been invited to write a series of guest posts for NYAM's "Books, Health and History" blog about the treasures and curiosities I have found in the Academy's vast historical collection.

I just finished the first post in that series, dedicated to one of my all-time favorite books: Johannes Jacob Scheuchzer's enigmatic and fascinating Physica Sacra, a large-scale, 4-volume high baroque extravaganza of art, science, mysticism, and all worldly knowledge. You can see one of my favorite, extremely Ruysch-esque images from that book above; you can find out more about this image, see many others, and learn more about this curious book on NYAM's Books, Health and History" blog by clicking here.

On a related aside: I am currently working on a new project with some lovely folks who have just purchased for our nascent collection a full, 4 volume, 1st edition Physica Sacra with a provenance tracing back to 18th century prime minister of Denmark Ove Høegh-Guldberg (!!!). Stay tuned for more very soon on that book and project!

Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, Exhibition, Through December 10th

I have just been alerted to a pretty great looking exhibition on through December 10th at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard. Entitled "Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe," the exhibition features not only prints but also flap anatomies (!!!), books, maps, and scientific instruments, all intended to explore "the role of celebrated artists in the scientific inquiries of the 16th century."

Full information follows, from the exhibition website:

Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe
Sep 6 2011 — Dec 10 2011
Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge examines how celebrated Northern Renaissance artists contributed to the scientific investigations of the 16th century. The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue challenge the perception of artists as illustrators in the service of scientists. Artists’ printed images served as both instruments for research and agents in the dissemination of knowledge. The exhibition, displaying prints, books, maps, and such instruments as sundials, globes, astrolabes, and armillary spheres, looks at relationships between their producers and their production, as well as among the objects themselves. The story of 16th-century technology is enhanced by technology of the 21st, with interactive computers in the galleries, an interactive module on the website, and an iPhone/iPad application in iTunes (check back here soon for an update on availability).

Curated by Susan Dackerman, Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints, Division of European and American Art, Harvard Art Museums. Organized in collaboration with the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

Opening Panel Discussion and Reception: September 6, 2011, 5–8pm.
Symposium: December 2, 2011, 5–8pm (evening program), and December 3, 2011, 8:30am–6:30pm (day program).

For more special programming related to the exhibition, such as tours, talks, concerts, and Family Days, see the Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge section of our calendar.

Admission note: During Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge, admission to the Sackler Museum galleries will be free on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 3–5pm.

Travel dates:
– September 6–December 10, 2011
Harvard Art Museums
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, MA
– January 17–April 8, 2012
Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue are made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Mrs. Arthur K. Solomon, Lionel and Vivian Spiro, Walter and Virgilia Klein, Julian and Hope Edison, Novartis on behalf of Dr. Steven E. Hyman, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Barbara and the late Robert Wheaton, the Goldman Sachs Foundation, and an anonymous donor. Additional support is provided by the Harvard Art Museums’ endowment funds: the Alexander S., Robert L., and Bruce A. Beal Exhibition Fund; Anthony and Celeste Meier Exhibitions Fund; Charlotte F. and Irving W. Rabb Exhibition Fund; and Melvin R. Seiden and Janine Luke Fund for Publications and Exhibitions.

You can find out more by clicking here; you can find out about--an order a copy of!--the catalog by clicking here.

Thanks to Daniel Margocsy, who helped put it together, for passing this along!

Images all drawn the exhibition page; full info including captions can be found by clicking here.

"Proteus" Screening with Film Maker David Lebrun, Observatory, April 1st

This April Fools Day, why not join Morbid Anatomy and Observatory for a screening of one of our absolute favorite films, Proteus, featuring an introduction by--and Q and A with--the film's maker, David Lebrun, in a rare East Coast appearance?

The film Proteus details the biography and struggles of biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) who, as the copy for the film describes, "found himself torn between seeming irreconcilables: science and art, materialism and religion, rationality and passion, outer and inner worlds." Lebrun tells Haeckel's tale with inventive and almost chillingly beautiful animation constructed almost entirely from 19th Century archival images, with the most stirring and awe-inspiring sequences created from quick successions of scores of Haeckel's astonishing depictions of protista, as seen above in some of his drawings, and in the video clip at about 5:10 minutes in.

We are thrilled to be hosting two screenings of the film, one at 7 PM and one at 9 PM, in conjunction with Proteus Gowanus Interdisciplinary Gallery and Reading Room. Film maker David Lebrun will be on hand at each to introduce the film and to answer any questions you might have.

Please pass this on to any interested parties, and hope very very much to see you there!

Date: Friday, April 1
Time: 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM (2 Screenings)
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy in partnership with Proteus Gowanus

The ocean is a wilderness reaching 'round the globe, wilder than
a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves
of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.
-- Henry David Thoreau, 1864

For the nineteenth century, the world beneath the sea played much the same role that "outer space" played for the twentieth. The ocean depths were at once the ultimate scientific frontier and what Coleridge called "the reservoir of the soul": the place of the unconscious, of imagination and the fantastic. Proteus uses the undersea world as the locus for a meditation on the troubled intersection of scientific and artistic vision. The one-hour film is based almost entirely on the images of nineteenth century painters, graphic artists, photographers and scientific illustrators, photographed from rare materials in European and American collections and brought to life through innovative animation.

The central figure of the film is biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). As a young man, Haeckel found himself torn between seeming irreconcilables: science and art, materialism and religion, rationality and passion, outer and inner worlds. Through his discoveries beneath the sea, Haeckel would eventually reconcile these dualities, bringing science and art together in a unitary, almost mystical vision. His work would profoundly influence not only biology but also movements, thinkers and authors as disparate as Art Nouveau and Surrealism, Sigmund Freud and D.H. Lawrence, Vladimir Lenin and Thomas Edison.

The key to Haeckel's vision was a tiny undersea organism called the radiolarian. Haeckel discovered, described, classified and painted four thousand species of these one-celled creatures. They are among the earliest forms of life. In their intricate geometric skeletons, Haeckel saw all the future possibilities of organic and created form. Proteus explores their metamorphoses and celebrates their stunning beauty and seemingly infinite variety in animation sequences based on Haeckel's graphic work.

Around Haeckel's story, Proteus weaves a tapestry of poetry and myth, biology and oceanography, scientific history and spiritual biography. The legend of Faust and the alchemical journey of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner are part of the story, together with the laying of the transatlantic telegraphic cable and the epic oceanographic voyage of HMS Challenger. All these threads lead us back to Haeckel and the radiolaria. Ultimately the film is a parable of both the difficulty and the possibility of unitary vision.

DAVID LEBRUN has served as producer, director, writer, cinematographer, animator and/or editor of more than sixty films, among them films on the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, a 1960s traveling commune, Tibetan mythology and a year in the life of a Maya village. He edited the Academy-award winning documentary Broken Rainbow, on the Hopi and Navajo of the American Southwest. Proteus premiered at Sundance and has won numerous international awards. The two-hour documentary feature Breaking the Maya Code (2008) tells the story of the 200-year quest to decipher the hieroglyphic script of the ancient Maya of central America; a drastically shortened version was broadcast on the PBS series NOVA and has been seen on television around the world. His experimental and animated works include the animated films Tanka (1976) and Metamorphosis (2010), works for multiple and variable-speed projectors such as Wind Over Water (1983), and a 2007 multimedia performance piece, Maya Variations, created in collaboration with composer Yuval Ron. Lebrun has taught film production and editing at the California Institute of the Arts and has curated numerous art exhibitions. He was president of First Light Video Publishing from 1987-1996, and since then president of Night Fire Films. He was a founding Board Member of the Center for Visual Music (CVM) and is on the Advisory Board of the Chabot Space & Science Center’s Maya Skies project. For a complete biography and filmography, please visit www.nightfirefilms.org.

You can find out more about the film by clicking here, and more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here; you can access these events on Facebook here (7 PM) and here (9 PM). You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Images: From Ernst Haeckel's Die Radiolarien, Berlin, 1862. And special thanks to Ben Cerveny for turning me onto this wonderful film so many years ago.

Tonight!!!! A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein," Observatory

Tonight at Observatory! I advise coming early, as this one is sure to sell out; Hope to see you there!

A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein
A screening and lecture with film-maker Jim Fields and Mike Lewi
Date: TONIGHT, Thursday February 10
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

In an eventful and successful career spanning 40 years, Dr. Robert White–pioneering neurosurgeon and Professor at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University–did many things. He participated in Nobel Prize-nominated work, published more than 700 scholarly articles, examined Vladimir Lenin’s preserved brain in Cold War Russia, founded Pope John Paul II’s Committee on Bioethics, went to mass daily, and raised 10 children. He also engaged in a series of horrifying and highly controversial experiments reminiscent of a B-Movie mad scientist, experiments which pushed the limits of medical ethics, infuriated the animal rights community, and questioned notions of identity, consciousness, and corporeality as well as mankind’s biblically-condoned dominion over the animal kingdom.

Tonight, join film-maker Jim Fields–best known for his 2003 documentary “End of the Century” about the legendary punk band The Ramones–and Mike Lewi for a screening of Fields’ short documentary about the life and work of this real-life Dr. Frankenstein whose chilling “full body transplants” truly seem the stuff of a B-Movie terror. Fields will introduce the film–which features a series of interviews with Dr. White discussing his controversial experiments–with an illustrated lecture contextualizing the doctor’s work within the history of “mad scientists” past and present, fictional and actual; scientists whose hubris drove them to go rogue by tampering with things perhaps best left alone.

Jim Fields made a few documentaries, one of which, “End of the Century: the Story of the Ramones” is particularly long. He’s currently a video journalist at Time Magazine and Time.com.

Mike Lewi is a filmmaker, event producer, and disc jockey.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Image: Drawing by Dr. Harvey Cushing, early 20th Century, found on the Yale Medical Library website.

Snow Cancellation: "A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein," Tonight, January 7th

Sorry folks. The snow won, and tonight's event--described below--is being postponed. Our sincere apologies, and new date to be posted very soon.

A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein
A screening and lecture with film-maker Jim Fields and Mike Lewi
Date: Friday, January 7th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

In an eventful and successful career spanning 40 years, Dr. Robert White–pioneering neurosurgeon and Professor at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University–did many things. He participated in Nobel Prize-nominated work, published more than 700 scholarly articles, examined Vladimir Lenin’s preserved brain in Cold War Russia, founded Pope John Paul II’s Committee on Bioethics, went to mass daily, and raised 10 children. He also engaged in a series of horrifying and highly controversial experiments reminiscent of a B-Movie mad scientist, experiments which pushed the limits of medical ethics, infuriated the animal rights community, and questioned notions of identity, consciousness, and corporeality as well as mankind’s biblically-condoned dominion over the animal kingdom.

Tonight, join film-maker Jim Fields–best known for his 2003 documentary “End of the Century” about the legendary punk band The Ramones–and Mike Lewi for a screening of Fields’ short documentary about the life and work of this real-life Dr. Frankenstein whose chilling “full body transplants” truly seem the stuff of a B-Movie terror. Fields will introduce the film–which features a series of interviews with Dr. White discussing his controversial experiments–with an illustrated lecture contextualizing the doctor’s work within the history of “mad scientists” past and present, fictional and actual; scientists whose hubris drove them to go rogue by tampering with things perhaps best left alone.

Jim Fields made a few documentaries, one of which, “End of the Century: the Story of the Ramones” is particularly long. He’s currently a video journalist at Time Magazine and Time.com.

Mike Lewi is a filmmaker, event producer, and disc jockey.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Image: Drawing by Dr. Harvey Cushing, early 20th Century, found on the Yale Medical Library website.

holiday, observatory, science, spectacle

Tonight at Observatory: "A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein," Tonight, January 7th

Tonight at Observatory, snowstorm be damned . Hope to see you there!

A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein
A screening and lecture with film-maker Jim Fields and Mike Lewi
Date: Friday, January 7th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

In an eventful and successful career spanning 40 years, Dr. Robert White–pioneering neurosurgeon and Professor at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University–did many things. He participated in Nobel Prize-nominated work, published more than 700 scholarly articles, examined Vladimir Lenin’s preserved brain in Cold War Russia, founded Pope John Paul II’s Committee on Bioethics, went to mass daily, and raised 10 children. He also engaged in a series of horrifying and highly controversial experiments reminiscent of a B-Movie mad scientist, experiments which pushed the limits of medical ethics, infuriated the animal rights community, and questioned notions of identity, consciousness, and corporeality as well as mankind’s biblically-condoned dominion over the animal kingdom.

Tonight, join film-maker Jim Fields–best known for his 2003 documentary “End of the Century” about the legendary punk band The Ramones–and Mike Lewi for a screening of Fields’ short documentary about the life and work of this real-life Dr. Frankenstein whose chilling “full body transplants” truly seem the stuff of a B-Movie terror. Fields will introduce the film–which features a series of interviews with Dr. White discussing his controversial experiments–with an illustrated lecture contextualizing the doctor’s work within the history of “mad scientists” past and present, fictional and actual; scientists whose hubris drove them to go rogue by tampering with things perhaps best left alone.

Jim Fields made a few documentaries, one of which, “End of the Century: the Story of the Ramones” is particularly long. He’s currently a video journalist at Time Magazine and Time.com.

Mike Lewi is a filmmaker, event producer, and disc jockey.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Image: Drawing by Dr. Harvey Cushing, early 20th Century, found on the Yale Medical Library website.

Happy Holidays From Morbid Anatomy and Friends

Happy Holidays, everyone, from me, Darwin/Santa, The Frightening Clapping Monkeys, and GF Newland, the genius maker of this card.

Upcoming Observatory Screening and Lecture: "A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein," Friday, January 7th

Morbid Anatomy is pleased to announce "A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein," a lecture and screening exploring the notion of the "mad scientist" in fact and fiction, history and myth. The focal point of the presentation will be the real life mad scientist Dr. Robert White, a professor and pioneering neurosurgeon whose experiments with what he termed "full body transplants" pushed many troubling boundaries.

The event will feature a short documentary film about Dr, White by Jim Fields, director of the “End of the Century: the Story of the Ramones." Fields and Lewi will introduce the film–which features a series of interviews with Dr. White discussing his controversial experiments–with an illustrated lecture contextualizing the doctor’s work within the history of “mad scientists” past and present, fictional and actual; scientists whose hubris drove them to go rogue by tampering with things perhaps best left alone.

Full event description follows; hope very much to see you there!

A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein
A screening and lecture with film-maker Jim Fields and Mike Lewi
Date: Friday, January 7th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

In an eventful and successful career spanning 40 years, Dr. Robert White–pioneering neurosurgeon and Professor at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University–did many things. He participated in Nobel Prize-nominated work, published more than 700 scholarly articles, examined Vladimir Lenin’s preserved brain in Cold War Russia, founded Pope John Paul II’s Committee on Bioethics, went to mass daily, and raised 10 children. He also engaged in a series of horrifying and highly controversial experiments reminiscent of a B-Movie mad scientist, experiments which pushed the limits of medical ethics, infuriated the animal rights community, and questioned notions of identity, consciousness, and corporeality as well as mankind’s biblically-condoned dominion over the animal kingdom.

Tonight, join film-maker Jim Fields–best known for his 2003 documentary “End of the Century” about the legendary punk band The Ramones–and Mike Lewi for a screening of Fields’ short documentary about the life and work of this real-life Dr. Frankenstein whose chilling “full body transplants” truly seem the stuff of a B-Movie terror. Fields will introduce the film–which features a series of interviews with Dr. White discussing his controversial experiments–with an illustrated lecture contextualizing the doctor’s work within the history of “mad scientists” past and present, fictional and actual; scientists whose hubris drove them to go rogue by tampering with things perhaps best left alone.

Jim Fields made a few documentaries, one of which, “End of the Century: the Story of the Ramones” is particularly long. He’s currently a video journalist at Time Magazine and Time.com.

Mike Lewi is a filmmaker, event producer, and disc jockey.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Image: Drawing by Dr. Harvey Cushing, early 20th Century, found on the Yale Medical Library website.

"Science and Curiosities at the Court of Versailles," Through February 2011

Thanks so much to my friend Megan for letting me know about the super exciting looking exhibition that will be on view at Versailles Palace in France through February of next year.

The show--entitled "Science and Curiosities at the Court of Versailles"--will tell the story of scientific inquiry, rational amusement, and natural and artificial curiosities at the grand royal court of Versailles. To illustrate this worthy topic, the exhibition will gather and display--for the first time ever--a variety of artifacts that once comprised part of the monolithic "royal collection" and are now--post French Revolution and disciplinary divides--housed in a variety of anatomical, anthropological, natural historical, and art museums around France.

The artifacts will reveal "a new, unexpected face of Versailles as a place of scientific inquiry in its most various forms," trace the stories of the relationship between natural philosophers and the royal court, and bring "together works and instruments from the old royal collections, spectacular achievements of beauty and intelligence, for the first time."

Good stuff!

Here is the full description from the website:

[Science and Curiosities at the Court of Versailles] reveals a new, unexpected face of Versailles as a place of scientific inquiry in its most various forms: the Hall of Mirrors electricity experiment, Marley Machine on the banks of the Seine, burning mirror solar power demonstration, etc. It brings together works and instruments from the old royal collections, spectacular achievements of beauty and intelligence, for the first time.

Versailles is the place where control over science was exercised. At the urging of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's "prime minister", the royal authority became aware of the benefits of scientific research. In 1666 Colbert founded the Academy of Science, establishing a new contract between the government and scientists. Many "natural philosophers", as they were known at the time, including some of the most famous, assiduously frequented the Court as physicians, army engineers, tutors, etc. The physicists Benjamin Franklin and Abbot Nollet compared their theories in front of the king and the encyclopaedists Diderot and D’Alembert met in the office of Dr. Quesnay, physician to Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV's favourite. Some courtiers were real experts.

The Château de Versailles offered many research resources. Anatomists and zoologists could study the menagerie's ostriches, pelicans, rhinoceroses and other rare animals, botanists and agronomists the plants on the grounds of the Trianon and "hippiatrists", the forerunners to veterinarians, the horses in the Grand Stables.

Educators developed new teaching methods using cutting-edge tools for the royal children and the kings' personal practice. While Louis XIV considered himself a protector of the arts and sciences without practicing them, his successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI, became true connoisseurs. A presentation to the king or demonstration before the Court was the highest honour, equivalent to winning a Nobel Prize. Many people know about the first hot-air balloon flight, but numerous other events have fallen into oblivion, such as the burning mirror demonstration in front of Louis XIV or the electricity experiment in the Hall of Mirrors under his successor's reign.

You can find out more on the exhibition website--which will be on view until February of next year--by clicking here. You can see the Tympanum Player Automaton in full automaton action by pressing play on the Youtube viewer above.

If anyone makes it to this exhibition, I would love to see images/hear a report!

Top two images are installation views of the exhibition from the Corbis Images Blog. The rest of the images from the exhibition website and are captioned, top to bottom:

• The Tympanum Player Automaton; Peter Kintzing (1745-1816) and David Roentgen (1743-1807)
• Rhinoceros gifted in 1769 to King Louis XV by the French governor of Chandernagore
• Waxen Indian head from the Cabinet of the Marquis de Sérent; originally on display in a window of the Marquis de Sérent's ethnographical cabinet in Rue des Réservoirs at Versailles acquired for the princes' education.
• 18th C Artwork depicting Étienne de Montgolfier's aerostatic experiment at Versailles
• Watercolour drawing by Philippe-Etienne Lafosse (1738-1820), intended for the study of Farriery, or the art of treating the ailments of horses

Via my wonderful friend Megan Fitzpatrick who found it via Jezebel.

The Dangers and Pleasures of Curiosity, from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance

Augustine included curiositas in his catalog of vices, identifying it as one of the three forms of lust (concupiscentia) that are the beginning of all sin (lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and ambition of the world). The overly curious mind exhibits a “lust to find out and know,” not for any practical purpose but merely for the sake of knowing. Thanks to the “disease of curiosity” people go to watch freaks in circuses and charlatans in the piazzas. Augustine saw no essential difference between such perverse entertainments and the “empty longing and curiosity [that is] dignified by the names of learning and science.”

I just came across a nice meditation on the history of the debate of curiosity as value or vice on the website of Author William Eamon, author of Science and the Secrets of Nature and The Professor of Secrets: Mystery, Medicine, and Alchemy in Renaissance Italy:

The Disease Called Curiosity
Nowadays we think of curiosity as an emotion necessary for the advancement of knowledge, indeed as the well-spring of scientific discovery. It was not always so.

Saint Augustine, in the fourth century, stated the traditional medieval view of curiosity, and it wasn’t favorable. In the Confessions, the Bishop of Hippo made inquisitiveness in general the subject of a vicious polemic, thereby setting the tone for the debate over intellectual curiosity for centuries. Augustine included curiositas in his catalog of vices, identifying it as one of the three forms of lust (concupiscentia) that are the beginning of all sin (lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and ambition of the world). The overly curious mind exhibits a “lust to find out and know,” not for any practical purpose but merely for the sake of knowing. Thanks to the “disease of curiosity” people go to watch freaks in circuses and charlatans in the piazzas. Augustine saw no essential difference between such perverse entertainments and the “empty longing and curiosity [that is] dignified by the names of learning and science.”

No difference between gawking at freaks in a sideshow and making investigations in natural philosophy? That’s what the saint said: “From the same motive,” Augustine wrote, “men proceed to investigate the workings of nature, which is beyond our ken—things which it does no good to know and which men only want to know for the sake of knowing.” Augustine’s severe judgment of intellectual curiosity, linking it with the sin of pride, the black arts, and the Fall, became conventional in medieval thought. In the Renaissance, it gave rise to such memorable characters as Doctor Faustus, who bartered his soul to the devil to satisfy his insatiable curiosity and quest for power.

Yet gawking curiosity was the perpetuum mobile of Renaissance science. Early modern curiosity was insatiable, never content with a single experience or object. Whereas Augustine linked curiosity to sensual lust and human depravity, Renaissance natural philosophers saw it as being driven by wonder and the engine of discovery...

...Venice’s maritime empire and its rich craft tradition provided plentiful fuel for wonder and curiosity. The continual contact with exotic commodities, whether herbs from the New World, mechanical toys from Persia, or fake dragons and basilisks, fueled Renaissance curiosity. All that evoked curiosity and wonder became prized objects for collectors, who displayed rare and exotic natural and artifical objects in curiosity cabinets, like peacocks proudly displaying their colorful feathers—indeed, peacock feather, too, were prized objects for collectors.

Pharmacies displayed the curiosities of Renaissance culture. The cabinet of pharmacist Francesco Calzolari at Verona, pictured here, displayed dried herbs, minerals, preserved animals, birds and snakes, including a supposed unicorn horn.

Such objects would become the “curious” things of early modern science. Saint Paul’s admonition, Noli alta sapere, “Do not seek to know high things,” gave way in the Renaissance to Horace’s more hopeful Sapere aude, “Dare to know.”

The transformation of curiosity in the Renaissance was a precondition of modernity. Without curiosity, there can be no scientific discovery, and without discovery, there can be no new knowledge.

You can read this piece in its entirety--and find out more about William Eamon and his work-- by clicking here.

Image caption: Pharmacies displayed the curiosities of Renaissance culture. The cabinet of pharmacist Francesco Calzolari at Verona, pictured here, displayed dried herbs, minerals, preserved animals, birds and snakes, including a supposed unicorn horn.

Galileo's Finger, Science Museums, and the New York Times

Now a particularly enduring Catholic practice is on prominent display in, of all places, Florence’s history of science museum, recently renovated and renamed to honor Galileo: Modern-day supporters of the famous heretic are exhibiting newly recovered bits of his body — three fingers and a gnarly molar sliced from his corpse nearly a century after he died — as if they were the relics of an actual saint.

“He’s a secular saint, and relics are an important symbol of his fight for freedom of thought,” said Paolo Galluzzi, the director of the Galileo Museum, which put the tooth, thumb and index finger on view last month, uniting them with another of the scientist’s digits already in its collection.

“He’s a hero and martyr to science,” he added.

The above image--of Galileo Galileo's preserved finger in its reliquary as now on display in Florence’s history of science museum--and text are drawn from an article that ran in today New York Times. You can read the article--which traces the history of Galileo as well as his preserved fingers and other assorted remains--in its entirety by clicking here.

Image Caption: "Visitors looked at one of Galileo’s fingers, on display at the Galileo Museum in Florence." Photo by Kathryn Cook for The New York Times                            

"Excellent Old-School Science Models," Life Magazine Photo Gallery

The images you see above--and the captions below--are drawn from a really fantastic Life Magazine online photo gallery entitled "Excellent Old-School Science Models." You can see the entire gallery of 29 images--well worth your perusal!--by clicking here.

Captions top to bottom, as supplied by the gallery:

1. Isn't She Lovely: Trainee nurses examine a model of a human body to learn anatomy, Gerry Cranham, Oct. 7, 1938
2. Behind It All: A technician works on life-like models for use in science and health lectures at the Cologne Health Museum in Germany, Ralph Crane, Feb 01, 1955
3. Going Deep: A technician at the Cologne Health Museum gets into his work, Ralph Crane, Feb 01, 1955
4. The Egg Factory: An exhibit illustrates the biology of the chicken at the World Poultry Exhibition at the Crystal Palace exhibition hall in London, Fox Photos, Jul 28, 1930
5. Universal: A girl scout leans in to take a closer look at an enclosed model of the solar system, circa 1920s, George Eastman House, Jan 01, 1920

Found via Morbid Anatomy Library intern Amber Duntley's Facebook feed. Thanks, Amber!

The Future of The Science Museum Debated by the New York TImes

Thanks so much, Matt, for sending me this really timely and thought-provoking article about the future of science museums--and a discussion of their fascinating past, as seen above--in today's New York Times. Much to mull over here, and it covers a lot of things that I have been thinking about of late. Following is an excerpt:

A science museum is a kind of experiment. It demands the most elaborate equipment: Imax theaters, NASA space vehicles, collections of living creatures, digital planetarium projectors, fossilized bones. Into this mix are thrust tens of thousands of living human beings: children on holiday, weary or eager parents, devoted teachers, passionate aficionados and casual passers-by. And the experimenters watch, test, change, hoping. ...

Hoping for what? What are the goals of these experiments, and when do they succeed? Whenever I’m near one of these museological laboratories, I eagerly submit to their probes, trying to find out. The results can be discouraging since some experiments seem so purposeless; their only goal might be to see if subjects can be persuaded to return for future amusement..... The experimentation may be a sign of the science museum’s struggle to define itself.

A century ago, such a notion would have been ridiculous. Museums were simply collections of objects. And science museums were collections of objects related to scientific inquiry and natural exploration. Their collections grew out of the “wonder cabinets” of gentlemen explorers, conglomerations of the marvelous.

Museums ordered their objects to reflect a larger natural order. In 1853, when a new natural history museum at Oxford University was being proposed, one advocate suggested that each specimen should have “precisely the same relative place that it did in God’s own Museum, the Physical Universe in which it lived and moved and had its being.” The science museum was meant to impress the visitor with the intricate order of the universe, the abilities of science to discern that order, and the powers of a culture able to present it all in so imposing a secular temple.

Not all of this was disinterested. Natural history museums typically treated non-Western cultures as if they were subsidiary branches in an evolutionary narrative; deemed closer to nature, these cultures were treated as part of natural history rather than as part of history. Self-aggrandizing posing was generally mixed in with the museum project.

But you can still feel its energy. Go to any science museum with an extensive collection and walk among its oldest display cases. The London Science Museum, for example, which had its origins in the Crystal Palace of the Great Exposition of 1851, has collections that still invoke the churning energies of the Industrial Revolution and its transformations.

One of the most astonishing collections I have seen is the Wellcome Collection, also in London. It includes moccasins owned by Florence Nightingale, Napoleon’s toothbrush, amputation saws, an array of prosthetic limbs, a Portuguese executioner’s mask, Etruscan votive offerings and obstetrical forceps. Henry Wellcome, who had made his fortune with the invention of the medicinal pill, owned over a million objects by the mid-1930s and imagined them fitting into a great “Museum of Man” that would encyclopedically trace humanity’s concerns with the body. After his death, the collection was partly dispersed, but even what is left is as exhilarating as it is bewildering. You look at such collections and sense an enormous exploratory enterprise. You end up with an enlarged understanding of the world’s variety and an equally enlarged sense of the human capacity to make sense of it.

But that ambition is gone and so is the trust in ourselves. This may be the crux of the uncertainty in contemporary science museums. Where does the museum place us, its human creators? ...

You can read the full article--which I really recommend!--by clicking here. I love that the reviewer was as happily intrigued by the Wellcome Collection as I; more on that wonderful institution (perhaps my favorite medical museum--if you can call it that--in the world!) here, here, here, here and here. Click on image to see much larger version.

Image: "Scarabattolo" (1675) by Domenico Remps (c. 1621-1699). Found at About.com.

The Magnificent Collection of the Museum Boerhaave, Leiden

I have just processed a batch of photographs from two recent trips to one of my favorite museums in the world, the venerable Boerhaave of Leiden, NL. The museum's collection magnificently demonstrates the richness of the history of medicine, anatomy and science as it played itself out in the Netherlands. Some of my particular favorite displays: An assortment of incredibly life-like, thoughtful, and uncanny wet preparations (circa 1730) from the collection of famed anatomist Bernardus Siegfried Albinus, (best remembered for his majestically illustrated monumental tome Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani):





A recreation of the Leiden anatomical theatre as it looked in the 17th Century (as memorialized in W. Swanenburg's 1610 engraving; see following image) complete with historically-accurate allegorically composed skeletons and a glossary of the Latin memorial phrases the banners they hold:








And loads of other wonderful odds and ends from the history of science and medicine including ancient skeletal material:




an impressive collection of recently refurbished Auzoux models:



Anatomically oriented artworks such as this 1803 watercolor "Petrus Koning with his Master" by J.H. Prins (as featured in a previous post):



And elegant natural history artifacts, such as this butterfly cabinet, attributed to "Sepp," from 1760:



These images are just the tip of the iceberg; you can see many more photos (and find out a great deal of information about them all) by clicking here; you can also view larger versions of the images by clicking on them. Photo-collections of similar museums can be viewed here. You can visit the Boerhaave website by clicking here.

Jellyfish, Charles Alexandre Lesueur, c. 1800

More on this naturalist, artist and explorer (1778-1846) here.

Found via Ailleurs Ici Presque Sans Sommeil. From the collection of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle Le Havre.

From top to bottom: Méduse Rhizostoma octopus (Linné, 1788), Méduse Chrysaora hysoscella (Linné, 1766), Méduse Cyanea lamarcki ( Péron et Lesueur, 1810).

"Figures du Corps" Exhibition, Visitor Photographs

Thanks so much to Morbid Anatomy reader Morgen Jahnke for sending me photographs (such as the one you see here) that she took on a visit to the "Figures du Corps–Une Leçon d’Anatomie aux Beaux-Arts” exhibition at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. As you might recall, I was lamenting the lack of photographic documentation of this exhibition on the web in a this previous post, and asking readers to send in photos. Thanks so much, Morgen, for heeding my call!

To see the full set of her photographs and their documentation, click here. To visit her website "Interesting Thing of the Day," click here.

Blaschka "Sea Creatures in Glass" Exhibition," through March 1, 2009, Harvard Museum of Natural History

I have just been alerted to a pretty exciting sounding exhibition now on view at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Called "Sea Creatures in Glass," the exhibition features 58 of 429 artful glass models of sea creatures produced by father/son team Leopold Blaschka (1822-1895) and Rudolph Blaschka (1857-1929) that reside in the museum collection but are rarely on view to the public. From the press release:

58 spectacular glass models of jellyfish, anemones, octopus -- animals crafted by the same renowned artists who created Harvard’s ‘Glass Flowers’. Many years before they were commissioned by Harvard University to make the “Glass Flowers,” father and son artists Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka, meticulously shaped glass and wire into lifelike models of marine animals.

Renowned for their beauty and exacting detail, the Blaschka marine invertebrate models were commissioned by universities and museums throughout world during the 19th century. This new exhibition features 58 of these spectacular glass animals – many never before on public display – taken from Harvard’s collection of 429 models.

Delicate jellyfish and anemones, tentacled squid, bizarre sea slugs (nudibranchs), and other soft-bodied sea creatures captured in glass are a sparkling testament to the Blaschka legacy.

Combined with video, real scientific specimens, a recreation of the Blaschka’s studio with their actual work bench, and a rich assortment of memorabilia, these invertebrate models offer intriguing insights into the history, personality, and artistry of the extraordinary men who created them. (through March 1, 2009) at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA www.hmnh.harvard.edu
617-495-3045
Harvard Square Red Line MBTA

The exhibition will be on view at the museum through March 1st, 2009. I have had the good fortune to see these models at other museums (such as the wonderful Grant Museum of Zoology in London) and can say that they are well worth a special trip; really beautiful, spectacular, fragile stuff, beautifully solving the problem of how to demonstrate the anatomy of such amorphous, delicate creatures which tend to languish, formless, when preserved in spirits.

For more information about the exhibition, directions, etc., visit the museum website here.

Thanks, Blue, for sending this along!