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67-454: The exhibitions team currently consists of over sixty artists, writers, preparators, designers and programmers. The department is responsible for the creation of two to three exhibits per year, making the AMNH one of the most extensive exhibition creators in the world. These extensive shows typically travel nationally to sister natural history museums . Due to the strong relationship between the lab and

134-519: A herbarium vivum with over 4,000 specimens of Carniolan and foreign plants, a smaller number of animal specimens, a natural history and medical library, and an anatomical theatre . A late example of the juxtaposition of natural materials with richly worked artifice is provided by the " Green Vaults " formed by Augustus the Strong in Dresden to display his chamber of wonders. The "Enlightenment Gallery" in

201-497: A virtuoso would find intellectually stimulating. In 1714, Michael Bernhard Valentini published an early museological work, Museum Museorum , an account of the cabinets known to him with catalogues of their contents. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Belsazar Hacquet (c. 1735 – 1815) operated in Ljubljana , then the capital of Carniola , a natural history cabinet ( German : Naturalienkabinet ) that

268-421: A cabinet of curiosities has also appeared in recent publications and performances. For example, Cabinet magazine is a quarterly magazine that juxtaposes apparently unrelated cultural artifacts and phenomena to show their interconnectedness in ways that encourage curiosity about the world. The Italian cultural association Wunderkamern uses the theme of historical cabinets of curiosities to explore how "amazement"

335-615: A field of collection for the British Museum that was to increase greatly with the explorations of Captain James Cook in Oceania and Australia and the rapid expansion of the British Empire ." Upon his death in 1753, Sloane bequeathed his sizable collection of 337 volumes to England for £20,000. In 1759, George II 's royal library was added to Sloane's collection to form the foundation of

402-405: A hands-on Cabinet of Curiosities, complete with taxidermied crocodile embedded in the ceiling a la Ferrante Imperato's Dell'Historia Naturale . In Los Angeles , the modern-day Museum of Jurassic Technology anachronistically seeks to recreate the sense of wonder that the old cabinets of curiosity once aroused. In Spring Green, Wisconsin , the house and museum of Alex Jordan, known as House on

469-637: A largely representational function, and dominated by aesthetic concerns and a marked predilection for the exotic," or the less grandiose, "the more modest collection of the humanist scholar or virtuoso, which served more practical and scientific purposes." Evans goes on to explain that "no clear distinction existed between the two categories: all collecting was marked by curiosity, shading into credulity, and by some sort of universal underlying design". In addition to cabinets of curiosity serving as an establisher of socioeconomic status for its curator, these cabinets served as entertainment, as particularly illustrated by

536-516: A love of the marvellous. This love was often exploited by eighteenth-century natural philosophers to secure the attention of their audience during their exhibitions. The earliest pictorial record of a natural history cabinet is the engraving in Ferrante Imperato 's Dell'Historia Naturale (Naples 1599) ( illustration ). It serves to authenticate its author's credibility as a source of natural history information, by showing his open bookcases (at

603-619: A mix of fact and fiction, including apparently mythical creatures. Worm's collection contained, for example, what he thought was a Scythian Lamb , a woolly fern thought to be a plant/sheep fabulous creature. However he was also responsible for identifying the narwhal 's tusk as coming from a whale rather than a unicorn , as most owners of these believed. The specimens displayed were often collected during exploring expeditions and trading voyages. Cabinets of curiosities would often serve scientific advancement when images of their contents were published. The catalog of Worm's collection, published as

670-435: A mixed bag of state or provincial support as well as university funding, causing differing systems of development and goals. Opportunities for a new public audience coupled with overflowing artifact collections led to a new design for natural history museums. A dual arrangement of museums was pioneered by J. Edward Gray, who worked with the British Museum in the 1860s. This layout separated the science-producing researcher from

737-688: A natural history museum is to provide the scientific community with current and historical specimens for their research, which is to improve our understanding of the natural world. Some museums have public exhibits to share the beauty and wonder of the natural world with the public; these are referred to as 'public museums'. Some museums feature non-natural history collections in addition to their primary collections, such as ones related to history, art, and science. Renaissance cabinets of curiosities were private collections that typically included exotic specimens of national history, sometimes faked, along with other types of object. The first natural history museum

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804-685: A new Cabinet of Curiosities room was opened at The Whitaker Museum & Art Gallery in Rawtenstall , Lancashire , curated by artist Bob Frith, founder of Horse and Bamboo Theatre . Several internet bloggers describe their sites as "wunderkammern" either because they are primarily links to interesting things, or inspire wonder similarly to the original wunderkammern (see External Links, below). Researcher Robert Gehl describes such internet video sites as YouTube as modern-day wunderkammern, although in danger of being refined into capitalist institutions "just as professionalized curators refined Wunderkammers into

871-572: A portrait and a religious picture (the Adoration of the Magi ) intermixed with preserved tropical marine fish and a string of carved beads, most likely amber , which is both precious and a natural curiosity. Sculptures both classical and secular (the sacrificing Libera , a Roman fertility goddess) on the one hand and modern and religious ( Christ at the Column ) are represented, while on the table are ranged, among

938-435: A range of cupboards contain specimen boxes and covered jars. In 1587 Gabriel Kaltemarckt advised Christian I of Saxony that three types of items were indispensable in forming a "Kunstkammer" or art collection: firstly sculptures and paintings; secondly "curious items from home or abroad"; and thirdly "antlers, horns, claws, feathers and other things belonging to strange and curious animals". When Albrecht Dürer visited

1005-682: A teaching tool for young physicians. Just prior to Mütter's death in 1859, he donated 1,344 items to the American College of Physicians in Philadelphia, along with a $ 30,000 endowment for the maintenance and expansion of his museum. Mütter's collection was added to ninety-two pathological specimens collected by Doctor Isaac Parrish between 1849 and 1852. The Mütter Museum began to collect antique medical equipment in 1871, including Benjamin Rush 's medical chest and Florence Nightingale 's sewing kit. In 1874

1072-636: A tropical West African rainforest, the Dzanga-Sangha rain forest diorama in the Hall of Biodiversity. Other notable dioramas, some dating back to the 1930s have been restored in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life . The hall is a 29,000 square foot (2,700 m²) bi-level room that includes a delicately mounted 94 foot (29 m) long model of a Blue Whale swimming beneath and around video projection screens and interactive computer stations. Among

1139-550: A twelve-volume herbarium from her gardens at Chelsea and Badminton upon her death in 1714. Reverend Adam Buddle gave Sloane thirteen volumes of British plants. In 1716, Sloane purchased Engelbert Kaempfer 's volume of Japanese plants and James Petiver 's virtual museum of approximately one hundred volumes of plants from Europe, North America, Africa, the Near East, India, and the Orient. Mark Catesby gave him plants from North America and

1206-575: Is manifested within today's artistic discourse. In May 2008, the University of Leeds Fine Art BA programme hosted a show called "Wunder Kammer", the culmination of research and practice from students, which allowed viewers to encounter work from across all disciplines, ranging from intimate installation to thought-provoking video and highly skilled drawing, punctuated by live performances. The concept has been reinterpreted at The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History . In July 2021

1273-522: The Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Places of exhibitions of and places of new societies that promoted natural knowledge also seemed to culture the idea of perfect civility. Some scholars propose that this was "a reaction against the dogmatism and enthusiasm of the English Civil War and Interregum [sic]. " This move to politeness put bars on how one should behave and interact socially, which enabled

1340-478: The British Museum , installed in the former "Kings Library" room in 2003 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the museum, aims to recreate the abundance and diversity that still characterized museums in the mid-eighteenth century, mixing shells, rock samples and botanical specimens with a great variety of artworks and other man-made objects from all over the world. Some strands of the early universal collections,

1407-522: The Chamber of Art and Curiosities at Ambras Castle in Austria. "The Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater. The Kunstkammer conveyed symbolically the patron's control of the world through its indoor, microscopic reproduction." Of Charles I of England 's collection, Peter Thomas states succinctly, "The Kunstkabinett itself was a form of propaganda." Two of

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1474-877: The Duke of Albemarle offered Sloane a position as personal physician to the West Indies fleet at Jamaica. He accepted and spent fifteen months collecting and cataloguing the native plants, animals, and artificial curiosities (e.g. cultural artifacts of native and enslaved African populations) of Jamaica. This became the basis for his two volume work, Natural History of Jamaica , published in 1707 and 1725. Sloane returned to England in 1689 with over eight hundred specimens of plants, which were live or mounted on heavy paper in an eight-volume herbarium. He also attempted to bring back live animals (e.g., snakes, an alligator, and an iguana) but they all died before reaching England. Sloane meticulously cataloged and created extensive records for most of

1541-630: The Hradschin at Prague, was unrivalled north of the Alps; it provided solace and retreat for contemplation that also served to demonstrate his imperial magnificence and power in the symbolic arrangement of their display, ceremoniously presented to visiting diplomats and magnates. Rudolf's uncle, Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria , also had a collection, organized by his treasurer , Leopold Heyperger , which put special emphasis on paintings of people with interesting deformities, which remains largely intact as

1608-524: The Museum Wormianum (1655), used the collection of artifacts as a starting point for Worm's speculations on philosophy, science, natural history, and more. Cabinets of curiosities were limited to those who could afford to create and maintain them. Many monarchs , in particular, developed large collections. A rather under-used example, stronger in art than other areas, was the Studiolo of Francesco I ,

1675-576: The Netherlands in 1521, apart from artworks he sent back to Nuremberg various animal horns, a piece of coral , some large fish fins and a wooden weapon from the East Indies . The highly characteristic range of interests represented in Frans II Francken 's painting of 1636 ( illustration, above ) shows paintings on the wall that range from landscapes, including a moonlit scene—a genre in itself—to

1742-558: The feather head-dress or crown of Montezuma now in the Museum of Ethnology, Vienna . Similar collections on a smaller scale were the complex Kunstschränke produced in the early seventeenth century by the Augsburg merchant, diplomat and collector Philipp Hainhofer . These were cabinets in the sense of pieces of furniture, made from all imaginable exotic and expensive materials and filled with contents and ornamental details intended to reflect

1809-676: The 1860s the Wunderkammer tradition of curiosities for gullible, often slow-moving throngs—Barnum's famously sly but effective method of crowd control was to post a sign, 'THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS!' at the exit door". In 1908, New York businessmen formed the Hobby Club , a dining club limited to 50 men, in order to showcase their "cabinets of wonder" and their selected collections. These included literary specimens and incunabula ; antiquities such as ancient armour; precious stones and geological items of interest. Annual formal dinners would be used to open

1876-566: The Ark collection in 1656. Ashmole, a collector in his own right, acquired the Tradescant Ark in 1659 and added it to his collection of astrological, medical, and historical manuscripts. In 1675, he donated his library and collection and the Tradescant collection to the University of Oxford , provided that a suitable building be provided to house the collection. Ashmole's donation formed the foundation of

1943-928: The British Museum. John Tradescant the Elder (circa 1570s–1638) was a gardener, naturalist, and botanist in the employ of the Duke of Buckingham. He collected plants, bulbs, flowers, vines, berries, and fruit trees from Russia, the Levant, Algiers, France, Bermuda, the Caribbean, and the East Indies. His son, John Tradescant the Younger (1608–1662) traveled to Virginia in 1637 and collected flowers, plants, shells, an Indian deerskin mantle believed to have belonged to Powhatan , father of Pocahontas . Father and son, in addition to botanical specimens, collected zoological (e.g., the dodo from Mauritius,

2010-638: The First World Congress on the Preservation and Conservation of Natural History Collections took place in Madrid, from 10 May 1992 to 15 May 1992. While the museum buildings where collections of artifacts were displayed started to overflow with materials, the prospect of a new building space would take years to build. As wealthy nations began to collect exotic artifacts and organisms from other countries, this problem continued to worsen. Museum funding came from

2077-454: The Rock , can also be interpreted as a modern day curiosity cabinet, especially in the collection and display of automatons. In Bristol, Rhode Island , Musée Patamécanique is presented as a hybrid between an automaton theater and a cabinet of curiosities and contains works representing the field of Patamechanics, an artistic practice and area of study chiefly inspired by Pataphysics . The idea of

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2144-493: The West Indies from an expedition funded by Sloane. Philip Miller gave him twelve volumes of plants grown from the Chelsea Physic Garden . Sloane acquired approximately three hundred and fifty artificial curiosities from North American Indians, Inuit, South America, Lapland, Siberia, East Indies, and the West Indies, including nine items from Jamaica. "These ethnological artifacts were important because they established

2211-399: The biological perspective in exhibits to teach the public more about the functional relationships between organisms. This required the expertise of zoologist and botanist. As this kind of work was not typical for educated scientists of the time, the new profession of curator developed. Natural history collections are invaluable repositories of genomic information that can be used to examine

2278-447: The bizarre or freakish biological specimens, whether genuine or fake, and the more exotic historical objects, could find a home in commercial freak shows and sideshows . In 1671, when visiting Thomas Browne (1605–1682), the courtier John Evelyn remarked, His whole house and garden is a paradise and Cabinet of rarities and that of the best collection, amongst Medails, books, Plants, natural things. Late in his life Browne parodied

2345-419: The classic cabinets of curiosities emerged in the sixteenth century. The term cabinet originally described a room rather than a piece of furniture . Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology , ethnography , archaeology , religious or historical relics , works of art (including cabinet paintings ), and antiquities . In addition to

2412-788: The company of learned men and that they cannot dwell forever in the Universities." Cabinets of Curiosities can now be found at Snowshill Manor and Wallington Hall , and the Ashmolean Museum has a display of items from its disparate Ashmole and Tradescant founding collections. Thomas Dent Mutter (1811–1859) was an early American pioneer of reconstructive plastic surgery. His specialty was repairing congenital anomalies, cleft lip and palates, and club foot. He also collected medical oddities, tumors, anatomical and pathological specimens, wet and dry preparations, wax models, plaster casts, and illustrations of medical deformities. This collection began as

2479-449: The coral reef found beneath the water's surface. The following is a partial list of the shows produced by the department. Natural history museums A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals , plants , fungi , ecosystems , geology , paleontology , climatology , and more. The primary role of

2546-429: The cultural change from a world viewed as static to a dynamic view of endlessly transforming natural history and a historical perspective that led in the seventeenth century to the germs of a scientific view of reality. In seventeenth-century parlance, both French and English, a cabinet came to signify a collection of works of art, which might still also include an assembly of objects of virtù or curiosities, such as

2613-693: The displayed curiosity. Because of this, many displays simply included a concise description of the phenomena and avoided any mention of explanation for the phenomena. Quentin Skinner describes the early Royal Society as "something much more like a gentleman's club, " an idea supported by John Evelyn , who depicts the Royal Society as "an Assembly of many honorable Gentlemen, who meete inoffensively together under his Majesty's Royal Cognizance; and to entertaine themselves ingenously, whilst their other domestique avocations or publique business deprives them of being always in

2680-561: The distinguishing of the polite from the supposed common or more vulgar members of society. Exhibitions of curiosities (as they were typically odd and foreign marvels) attracted a wide, more general audience, which "[rendered] them more suitable subjects of polite discourse at the Society." A subject was considered less suitable for polite discourse if the curiosity being displayed was accompanied by too much other material evidence, as it allowed for less conjecture and exploration of ideas regarding

2747-604: The entire cosmos on a miniature scale. The best preserved example is the one given by the city of Augsburg to King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in 1632, which is kept in the Museum Gustavianum in Uppsala . The curio cabinet , as a modern single piece of furniture, is a version of the grander historical examples. The juxtaposition of such disparate objects, according to Horst Bredekamp 's analysis (Bredekamp 1995), encouraged comparisons, finding analogies and parallels and favoured

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2814-455: The exhibitions lab. Notable among them is the Akeley Hall of African Mammals which opened in 1936, at a time before widespread color photography. The hall showcases the vanishing wildlife of Africa in spaces where the human presence is notably absent, and includes hyperrealistic depictions of elephants , hippopotamuses , lions , gorillas , zebras , and various species of antelope , including

2881-521: The exotic shells (including some tropical ones and a shark's tooth): portrait miniatures , gem-stones mounted with pearls in a curious quatrefoil box, a set of sepia chiaroscuro woodcuts or drawings, and a small still-life painting leaning against a flower-piece, coins and medals—presumably Greek and Roman—and Roman terracotta oil-lamps, a Chinese-style brass lock, curious flasks, and a blue-and-white Ming porcelain bowl. The Kunstkammer of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (ruled 1576–1612), housed in

2948-637: The first Medici Grand-Duke of Tuscany. Frederick III of Denmark , who added Worm's collection to his own after Worm's death, was another such monarch. A third example is the Kunstkamera founded by Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg in 1714. Many items were bought in Amsterdam from Albertus Seba and Frederik Ruysch . The fabulous Habsburg Imperial collection included important Aztec artifacts, including

3015-489: The hall in order to revitalize the artistic influences of the present. Today, although the art of diorama has ceased to be a major exhibition technique, dramatic examples of this art form are still occasionally employed. In 1997 museum artists and scientists traveled to the Central African Republic to collect samples and photographs for the construction of a 3,000 square foot (300 m) recreation of

3082-521: The hall's notable dioramas is the " sperm whale and giant squid ", which represents a true melding of art and science since an actual encounter between these two giant creatures at over one half mile depth has never been witnessed. Another celebrated diorama in the hall represents the "Andros coral reef" in the Bahamas , a two-story-high diorama that features the land form of the Bahamas and the many inhabitants of

3149-771: The histories of biodiversity and environmental change. Collaborations between museums and researchers worldwide are enabling scientists to unravel ecological and evolutionary relationships such as the domestication of the horse , using genetic samples from museum collections. New methods and technologies are being developed to support museomics . Cabinet of curiosities Cabinets of curiosities ( German : Kunstkammer and Kunstkabinett ), also known as wonder-rooms ( German : Wunderkammer ), were encyclopedic collections of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Although more rudimentary collections had preceded them,

3216-430: The left, the room is fitted out like a studiolo with a range of built-in cabinets whose fronts can be unlocked and let down to reveal intricately fitted nests of pigeonholes forming architectural units, filled with small mineral specimens. Above them, stuffed birds stand against panels inlaid with square polished stone samples, doubtless marbles and jaspers or fitted with pigeonhole compartments for specimens. Below them,

3283-553: The most famous and best documented cabinets of rulers and aristocrats, members of the merchant class and early practitioners of science in Europe formed collections that were precursors to museums . Cabinets of curiosities served not only as collections to reflect the particular interests of their curators but also as social devices to establish and uphold rank in society. There are said to be two main types of cabinets. As R. J. W. Evans notes, there could be "the princely cabinet, serving

3350-496: The most famously described seventeenth-century cabinets were those of Ole Worm , known as Olaus Wormius (1588–1654) ( illustration, above right ), and Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680). These seventeenth-century cabinets were filled with preserved animals, horns, tusks, skeletons, minerals, as well as other interesting man-made objects: sculptures wondrously old, wondrously fine or wondrously small; clockwork automata ; ethnographic specimens from exotic locations. Often they would contain

3417-612: The museum acquired one hundred human skulls from Austrian anatomist and phrenologist, Joseph Hyrtl (1810–1894); a nineteenth-century corpse, dubbed the "soap lady"; the conjoined liver and death cast of Chang and Eng Bunker , the Siamese twins; and in 1893, Grover Cleveland 's jaw tumor. The Mütter Museum is an excellent example of a nineteenth-century grotesque cabinet of medical curiosities. P. T. Barnum established Barnum's American Museum on five floors in New York, "perpetuating into

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3484-463: The museum's extensive research and curation wing, the department has been among the first to introduce brand new topics to the public. They have produced, among others, the first exhibits to discuss Darwinian evolution , human-induced climate change and the Mesozoic mass extinction via asteroid . The AMNH dioramas have themselves become major historic attractions, and possibly the best known works of

3551-522: The natural history museum was a new space for public interaction with the natural world. Museums began to change the way they exhibited their artifacts, hiring various forms of curators, to refine their displays. Additionally, they adopted new approaches to designing exhibits. These new ways of organizing would support learning of the lay audience. Organised by the League of Nations , the first International Museography Congress happened in Madrid in 1934. Again,

3618-413: The possibility of diverse audiences, instead adopting the view of an expert as the standard. The mid-eighteenth century saw an increased interest in the scientific world by the middle class bourgeoisie who had greater time for leisure activities, physical mobility and educational opportunities than in previous eras. Other forms of science consumption, such as the zoo, had already grown in popularity. Now,

3685-529: The proceedings of the Royal Society , whose early meetings were often a sort of open floor to any Fellow to exhibit the findings his curiosities led him to. However purely educational or investigative these exhibitions may sound, the Fellows in this period supported the idea of "learned entertainment," or the alignment of learning with entertainment. This was not unusual, as the Royal Society had an earlier history of

3752-493: The rarely seen aquatic sitatunga . Some of the displays are up to 18 feet (5 m) in height and 23 feet (7 m) in depth. With the 1942 opening of the Hall of North American Mammals, diorama art reached a pinnacle. It took more than a decade to create the scenes depicted in the hall which includes a 432 square foot (40 m²) diorama of the American bison . The department recently redesigned

3819-415: The right), in which many volumes are stored lying down and stacked, in the medieval fashion, or with their spines upward, to protect the pages from dust. Some of the volumes doubtless represent his herbarium . Every surface of the vaulted ceiling is occupied with preserved fishes, stuffed mammals and curious shells, with a stuffed crocodile suspended in the centre. Examples of corals stand on the bookcases. At

3886-575: The rising trend of collecting curiosities in his tract Musaeum Clausum , an inventory of dubious, rumoured and non-existent books, pictures and objects. Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753) an English physician, member of the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians , and the founder of the British Museum in London, began sporadically collecting plants in England and France while studying medicine. In 1687,

3953-461: The science-consuming public audience. By doing so, museums were able to save space in the exhibit areas and display a smaller, more focused amount of material to the public. This also allowed for greater curation of exhibits that eased the lay viewer's learning and allowed them to develop a more holistic understanding of the natural world. Natural history museums became a story of our world, telling different organisms narratives. Use of dual arrangement

4020-659: The specimens and objects in his collection. He also began to acquire other collections by gift or purchase. Herman Boerhaave gave him four volumes of plants from Boerhaave's gardens at Leiden. William Charleton, in a bequest in 1702, gave Sloane numerous books of birds, fish, flowers, and shells and his miscellaneous museum consisting of curiosities, miniatures, insects, medals, animals, minerals, precious stones and curiosities in amber. Sloane purchased Leonard Plukenet 's collection in 1710. It consisted of twenty-three volumes with over 8,000 plants from Africa, India, Japan and China. Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort (1630–1715) , left him

4087-719: The upper jaw of a walrus, and armadillos), artificial curiosities (e.g., wampum belts, portraits, lathe turned ivory, weapons, costumes, Oriental footwear and carved alabaster panels) and rarities (e.g., a mermaid's hand, a dragon's egg, two feathers of a phoenix's tail, a piece of the True Cross, and a vial of blood that rained in the Isle of Wight). By the 1630s, the Tradescants displayed their eclectic collection at their residence in South Lambeth. Tradescant's Ark, as it came to be known,

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4154-620: The various collections up to inspection for the other members of the club. By the early decades of the eighteenth century, curiosities and wondrous specimens began to lose their influence among European natural philosophers. As Enlightenment thinkers placed growing emphasis on patterns and systems within nature, anomalies and rarities came to be regarded as potentially misleading objects of study. Curiosities, previously interpreted as divine messages and expressions of nature's variety, were increasingly seen as vulgar exceptions to nature's overall uniformity. The Houston Museum of Natural Science houses

4221-562: Was appreciated throughout Europe and was visited by the highest nobility, including the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II , the Russian grand duke Paul and Pope Pius VI , as well as by famous naturalists, such as Francesco Griselini  [ it ] and Franz Benedikt Hermann  [ de ] . It included a number of minerals, including specimens of mercury from the Idrija mine,

4288-630: Was possibly that of Swiss scholar Conrad Gessner , established in Zürich in the mid-16th century. The National Museum of Natural History , established in Paris in 1635, was the first natural history museum to take the form that would be recognized as a natural history museum today. Early natural history museums offered limited accessibility, as they were generally private collections or holdings of scientific societies. The Ashmolean Museum , opened in England in 1683,

4355-458: Was quickly adopted and advocated by many across the world. A notable proponent of its use was German zoologist Karl Mobias who divided the natural museum in Hamburg in 1866.   The goal of such museums was not only to display organisms, but detail their interactions in the human world as well as within their unique ecosystems. Naturalists such as American Joseph Leidy pushed for greater emphasis on

4422-459: Was the earliest major cabinet of curiosity in England and open to the public for a small entrance fee. Elias Ashmole (1617–1692) was a lawyer, chemist, antiquarian, Freemason , and a member of the Royal Society with a keen interest in astrology , alchemy , and botany. Ashmole was also a neighbor of the Tradescants in Lambeth. He financed the publication of Musaeum Tradescantianum , a catalogue of

4489-727: Was the first natural history museum to grant admission to the general public. The natural history museum did not exist as a typical museum prior to the eighteenth century. Civic and university buildings did exist to house collections used for conducting research, however these served more as storage spaces than museums by today's understanding. All kept artifacts were displayed to the public as catalogs of research findings and served mostly as an archive of scientific knowledge. These spaces housed as many artifacts as fit and offered little description or interpretation for visitors. Kept organisms were typically arranged in their taxonomic systems and displayed with similar organisms. Museums did not think of

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