Buonanni, Musaeum Kircherianum, Rome, 1709, contemporary calf

BUONANNI, FILIPPO

Musaeum Kircherianum, sive musaeum a P. Athanasio Kirchero in Collegio Romano Societatis Jesu... nuper restitutum, auctum, descriptum, & iconibus illustratum. Rome: Giorgio Placho, 1709

folio (363 x 233mm.), engraved frontispiece portrait of Francesco Maria Ruspoli, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, woodcut diagrams, 124 engraved plates (2 folding) and 48 engraved plates of shells (including 3 section titles), contemporary English panelled calf, red speckled edges, occasional light browning, joints cracked

Kircher's famed cabinet of curiosities had the earlier collection of Alfonso Donnino at its core. Kircher's international network of Jesuit and intellectual contacts furnished him with a substantial number of varied objects, from antiquities (including shoes) to ethnographical items to fossils to animal specimens to machines; the final 48 plates depict a vast number of shells which were Buonanni's particular specialism.

LITERATURE:

Grinke, From Wunderkammer to Museum 29; Nissen ZBI 2198; Rossetti 1377