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 The
cabinet of curiosities, or Wunderkammer, was designed to facilitate
an encyclopaedic enterprise, the aim of which was the collection and preservation
of the whole of knowledge. The earliest encyclopaedic practices were set
within a classical framework whereby new observations and practical experiments
were seen as the continuation of work initiated by the great ancient thinkers,
such as Aristotle and Pliny the Elder. Working within this framework,
many early encyclopaedists turned to empirical activities in an effort
to resolve the questions prompted by the close analysis of ancient texts,
made increasingly accessible during the decades immediately following
the invention of the printing press. Over time, however, these activities
began to reveal new truths in conflict with the tenets of classical doctrine.
As a result, they began to undermine the established authority of the
ancients, thereby paving the way for new methods of ‘scientific' investigation.
While these
various methods evolved over time, the cabinet, in contrast, remained
consistent in its role as a site of collection and display, where the
whole of nature could be brought together in microcosm, for the benefit
of closer and more detailed analysis. Within the structural parameters
of the cabinet space, the collector set out to comprehend nature through
the control of its various parts. The control of nature was the goal of
the early collecting practice, and was the driving force behind the ordering
and cataloguing of objects and artifacts. This is an important consideration
in that it makes clear the fact that the collections resulting from this
process were founded on an organizational principle, which, although foreign
to the modern collector, was dependent on philosophical considerations
relevant at the time. In line with this principle, collectors of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries devised strategies which included the systematic
categorization of the objects in their possession. In most cases, these
objects were recorded and displayed in an organized manner, even if the
criteria for organization were at times subjective; differing slightly
from one collection to the next.
Regardless
of their potential variations, the strategies adopted by these collectors
enabled them to impose an order on the natural world. Their ability to
do this was considered a form of power, which, in turn, was held as a
characteristic unique to mankind. In this context, then, the collecting
and controlling of material objects was not an end in itself, but was
an integral part of a continuing process of self-discovery; of the shaping
of man's identity as part of the greater universe, yet distinct among
the products of divine creation.
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