Antoni Romuald Chodyński
Opuscula Musealia, Volume 27, Volume 27 (2020), s. 131 - 167
https://doi.org/10.4467/20843852.OM.20.008.13747The work of M.B. Valentini “Museum museorum” and other museographical publications from the Gdańsk book collections and their significance in the formation of the natural history collections in the 17th and 18th centuries
After 1700 we observe a clear increase in the number of conscious collectors gathering works of art, naturalia and various curiosities – mirabilia, typical of many Baroque “chambers” (Kammer) that were created by collectors during the previous, 17th century. Michael Bernhard Valentini (1657–1729), court physician at the court of the Landgrave of Hessen, published a compendium of encyclopaedic knowledge, a work for academic collectors of natural history specimens, entitled Museum museorum (Vol. I–II, Frankfurt am Main 1704–1714). Valentini provided information about various noteworthy things found in the Old and New World as well as in Asia (India), sometimes exceeding the limits of previous knowledge, both for researchers and collectors. Valentini’s work may be seen as evidence of a real collector’s fever, directed not only at all kinds of rare and curious things (curiosities) but also research objects collected for study purposes, especially in countries north of the Alps (e.g. natural amber and amber with insect inclusions). This German author recommended in his proposed programme for the creation of an ideal modern museum that objects should be arranged into groups, for example naturalia and artificialia and then divided into more detailed subgroups in order to make them more visible and their content more comprehensible, therefore enriching the knowledge of the surrounding world.