Kircherian Museum

Engraved title-page.

The Kircherian Museum, thus named after its first curator, the Jesuit Father Athanasius Kircher, was an encyclopedic collection established at the Roman College in 1651 as a requisite for receiving the legacy bequeathed by the patrician Alfonso Donnino. The museum became relatively famous in its time and is often mentioned in current literature as an example of Early Modern Wunderkammer or Curiosity Cabinet.

Donnino’s endowment consisted of his personal galleria which was said to have occupied five large rooms in the Palazzo dei Conservatori at Campidoglio in Rome. According to the donation documents, it included “statue, mascheroni, idoli, quadri, armi, pitture, tabula di marmo, vasi di vetro e cristallo, istromenti musicali, piatti pinti, tutte sorti di pietre e frammenti d’antichità”.

Besides the articles from Donnino’s gallery, the Kircherian Museum incorporated other groups of objects already assembled at the Roman College, most notably a collection of instruments and manuscripts used for the advanced teaching of Mathematics known as musaeum mathematicum, initially organized by the Jesuit Christophorus Clavius, who had been a professor at the institution. By the time of Donnino’s donation, the musaeum mathematicum was under the care of Athanasius Kircher, who had enlarged it with his own inventions and frequently made use of the devices in demonstrations to students, scholars and external visitors. The Kircherian Museum collection was complemented by other items of naturalia and artificialia, either sent by fellow Jesuits, from Europe and abroad, or gifted by patrons and contributors throughout its existence.

An overall picture of the collection can be grasped from the catalogue published in 1678, from the press of Joannes Jansson van Waesberghe in Amsterdam, written by an otherwise unknown Giorgio de Sepi, with the supervision of Kircher himself. The title of the catalogue was Romani Collegii Societatis Jesu Musaeum Celeberrimum and its fully readable on GATE at this link (with full-text search available).

After Kircher death in 1680, the curation of the museum was left vacant for almost two decades. Accounts from the period suggest that this resulted in a decline and dispersion of the collection due to the lack of surveillance, maintenance, and organization. In 1698 another Jesuit, Filippo Bonanni, was appointed to take charge of the museum, enlarging the collection and rearranging the objects in a different site at the Roman College. This new conception of the collection was described in the Musaeum Kircherianum, a work by Bonanni printed in 1709.

Later, around 1716, Bonanni also wrote a report to his superiors in which he described all the actions taken in the previous two decades to save and reorganize the museum. The goal of the report was to obtain an annual income for the museum to avoid its decline, as had happened immediately after Kircher death. The transcription of the report, entitled Notizie circa la Galleria del Collegio Romano is also available on GATE at this link.

From the moment of the suppression of the Jesuit Society in 1773 the collection of the Kircherian Museum went through drastic transformation. It was eventually sequestered by the State in the 19th century, which incorporated different groups of objects into newly created, specialized museums, such as the National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography organized by Luigi Pigorini in 1876. A group of scientific objects then known as the “Kircherian Physics Cabinet” was donated to the Liceo Ennio Quirino Visconti (located to this day in the building previously occupied by the Roman College), carrying the name of Kircherian Museum.

More information about the Kircherian Museum can be discovered looking at the Bibliographia Kircheriana, where Kircherian Museum is a keyword assigned to the following entries:

Entry ID	Author	Title	Year	Language	Bibliographic level
AHSI 104 727	Rivosecchi, Valerio	Esotismo in Roma barocca. Studi sul Padre Kircher	1982	ita	Monography
AKC Bibliography 0010	Findlen, Paula	Possessing nature : Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy	1994	eng	Monography
AKC Bibliography 0024	Garrucci, Raffaele	Origini e vicende del Museo Kircheriano dal 1651 al 1773	1879	ita	Paper in journal
AKC Bibliography 0030	Secchi, Giampietro (S.I.)	Campione d'antica bilibra romana in piombo conservato nel Museo Kircheriano: con greca inscrizione inedita	1835	ita	Monography
AKC Bibliography 0032	Marchi, Giuseppe	La cista atletica del Museo Kircheriano	1848	ita	Monography
AKC Bibliography 0035	De Ruggiero, Ettore	Guida del Museo Kircheriano	1879	ita	Monography
AKC Bibliography 0037	Marchi, Giuseppe Tessieri, Pietro	L'aes grave del Museo Kircheriano, ovvero, Le monete primitive dei popoli dell'Italia media, ordinate e descritte, aggiuntovi un ragionamento per tentarne l'illustrazione	1839	ita	Monography
AKC Bibliography 0049	Findlen, Paula	Scientific spectacle in Baroque Rome: Athanasius Kircher and the Roman College Museum	2003	eng	Book chapter
AKC Bibliography 0053	Westerhoff, Jan C.	A World of Signs: Baroque Pansemioticism, the Polyhistor and the Early Modern Wunderkammer	2001	eng	Paper in journal
AKC Bibliography 0062	Leinkauf, Thomas	Mundus combinatus und ars combinatoria als geistesgeschichtlicher Hintergrund des Museum Kircherianum in Rom	1994	ger	Book chapter
AKC Bibliography 0067	Seipel, Wilfried (ed.)	Ägyptomanie. Europäische Ägypten Imagination von der Antike bis heute. Schriften des Kunsthistorischen Museums Vol. 3 - Symposium Wien, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 30. und 31. Oktober 1994	2000	ger	Conference proceedings
AKC Bibliography 0068	Gilly, Carlos	Ermetismo per turisti, ovvero come fare di Ermete un pezzo da museo: Athanasius Kircher	2002	ita eng	Exhibition catalogue contribution
AKC Bibliography 0069	Avellino, Francesco Maria	Dell'aes grave del Museo kircheriano: articoli due	1839	ita	Monography
AKC Bibliography 0070	Bartola, Alberto	Alle origini del Museo del Collegio Romano: documenti e testimonianze	2004	ita	Paper in journal
AKC Bibliography 0072	Asmussen, Tina Burkart, Lucas Rößler, Hole	Schleier des Wissens. Athanasius Kirchers Strategien der Sichtbarmachung in Stadt, Museum und Buch	2011	ger	Paper in journal
AKC Bibliography 0082	Lafaye, G.	Le Musée Kircher	1879	fre	Paper in journal
AKC Bibliography 0088	Battarra, Giovanni Antonio	Rerum naturalium historia nempe quadrupedum insectorum piscium variorumque marinorum corporum fossilium plantarum exoticarum ac præsertim testaceorum existentium in Museo Kircheriano edita iam a P. Philippo Bonannio nunc vero nova methodo distributa notis illustrata in tabulis reformata novisque observationibus locupletata a Iohanne Antonio Battarra Ariminensi	1773-1782	lat	Printed (pre-1830)
AKC Bibliography 0093	Contucci, Contuccio	Musaei Kircheriani aerea notis illustrata	1763-1765	lat	Printed (pre-1830)
AKC Bibliography 0100	De Ruggiero, Ettore	Catalogo del Museo Kircheriano	1878	ita	Monography
AKC Bibliography 0106	Findlen, Paula,	Science, History, and Erudition: Athanasius Kircher's museum et the Collegio Romano	2001	eng	Exhibition catalogue contribution
AKC Bibliography 0113	Mayer-Deutsch, Angela	Das Musaeum Kircherianum. Kontemplative Momente, historische Rekonstruktion, Bildrhetorik	2010	ger	Monography
AKC Bibliography 0397	Hunter, Michael	John Ray in Italy: lost manuscripts rediscovered	2014	eng	Paper in journal
AKC Bibliography 0399	Baronio Ciaconio, Alfonso Bosio, D’Antonio Panciroli, Ottavio.	Descrizione di Roma moderna, formata nuovamente ...	1697	ita	Printed (pre-1830)
AKC Bibliography 0400		Nota delli Musei, Librerie, Galerie & ornamenti di Statue, e Pitture, ne’ Palazzi, nelle Case, e ne’ Giardini di Roma	1664	ita	Printed (pre-1830)
AKC Bibliography 0401	Evelyn, John	The diary of John Evelyn	1901	eng
AKC Bibliography 0402	Misson, Maximilian	Nouveau voyage d'Italie, avec un memoire contenant des avis utiles a ceux qui voudront faire le mesme voyage	1702	fre	Printed (pre-1830)
AKC Bibliography 0403	Piazza, Carlo Bartolomeo	Eusebologion. Euseuologio romano, ouero Delle opere pie di Roma, accresciuto, & ampliato secondo lo stato presente. Con due trattati delle accademie, e librerie celebri di Roma ...	1698	ita	Printed (pre-1830)
AKC Bibliography 0404	Priorat, Galeazzo Gualdo	Historia della sacra real maestà di Christina Alessandra regina di Suetia, &c	1656	ita	Printed (pre-1830)
AKC Bibliography 0405	Spon, Jacob Wheler, George	Voyage d'Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grece et du Levant fait aux annies 1675 & 1676 ...	1678	fre	Printed (pre-1830)
AKC Bibliography 0406	Mochizuki, Mia M.	Connected Worlds—The World, the Worldly, and the Otherworldly: An Introduction	2018	eng	Book chapter
AKC Bibliography 0415	Vaz de Carvalho, Carolina	OBJETOS BRASILEIROS NA COLEÇÃO DO COLLEGIUM ROMANUM JESUÍTA, 1678 – INTERSEÇÕES ENTRE AÇÕES MISSIONÁRIAS E PRÁTICAS COLECIONISTAS DA ALTA IDADE MODERNA	2018	por	Book chapter
AKC Bibliography 0416	Vaz de Carvalho, Carolina	ENTRE ROMA E NOVA ESPANHA: AS TROCAS EPISTOLARES DE ATHANASIUS KIRCHER E ALEXANDRO FAVIÁN, 1661-1674	2019	por	Paper in conference proceedings
AKC Bibliography 0417	Rößler, Hole Asmussen, Tina Schmidt-Biggemann, Wilhelm Burkart, Lucas Breidbach, Olaf Böhling, Frank Eusterschulte, Anne	Hauptwerke. Band 11: Musaeum Celeberrimum (ed. Georgius de Sepibus). - Vita Patris Athanasii Kircheri.	2019	ger lat	Monography