The Theater of Nature or Curiosity Filled the Cabinet

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The Theater of Nature or Curiosity Filled the Cabinet
by Angela Lorenz

Edition of 7 copies	11.3"x11.3"; 26"x11.3"x24" displayed upright	Bologna, Italy, 1999
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This work was inspired by the remnants of the most famous and extensive collection of artifacts, mostly natural, in 16th c. Europe. They were amassed by Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605), the first professor of natural history ever appointed in Italy, at the University of Bologna. A tiny fraction of Aldrovandi's 18,000 items are still on display in today's Aldrovandi Museum at the University of Bologna, but a few of the strangest pieces caused the artist to investigate the collection. Oddities, such as a frog with a lizard's tail plastered on and fishes' teeth inserted into the frog's mouth, led to research that included not just Aldrovandi and his thousands of tempera paintings but the History of Museums in general. What was originally going to be a work about the fakes created for museums and natural history collections gave way to the broader topic of museology from Hellenistic Greece to the Enlightenment. The series of seven books, plus two copies lettered A and B, form an edition with unique variants, as each copy has nine original watercolors of completely different subjects commissioned either by Aldrovandi or by Manfredo Settala (1600-1680) for their collections of curiosities. Settala's museum was in Milan, but his manuscripts are housed today in the Biblioteca Estense of Modena, not far from Bologna. The research, both iconographic and textual, was boiled down to a 900-word rhyming poem that accompanies the watercolor illustrations. These are hidden from view, however, when the book is placed upright and its double concertina fold extended outward. In this position, only the 11 copper-plate etchings are visible, as a wunderkammer or theater of nature, receding into the distance. The etchings, hand-drawn by the artist, are based on the earliest images of museums in Europe. They recreate prints commissioned by founders of collections of curiosities to represent the museums visually at the front of a published catalog. The first two etchings are visible through the front cover when the book is closed, as the cover was die-cut to resemble the display cabinet in the left-hand etching. In place of glass, the artist split, cut and glued into the cover, sheets of lepidolite, a purple mineral of the mica family. Not only does the lepidolite create the idea of a cabinet, but it also reflects light as did the mirrors often incorporated into museums of curiosities. And while asbestos, a common item in these early collections (from which even museum souvenirs were made), is now known to be toxic, mica is not, yet magically resists heat as well. More importantly, the book needed to contain examples of the animal, vegetable and mineral world. The front cover sports the mineral, and the back and spine represents the animal with a vellum binding. The vegetable world is more subtle. The etching paper is composed of cotton rag; however, it was dyed in boiling calendula flowers before the etchings were printed. In this way, not just a plant is represented but one with medicinal value, known as a "simple". But a further element need to be included, also from the mineral world, one that inspired wonder: the magnet. The book closes with magnets sewn into two leather straps, similar to ethnographic amulet cases, which automatically adhere to magnets inserted in the back cover when closing the book. The stitching of the straps forms the letter "u", for Ulisse Aldrovandi, the wandering naturalist. Text printed without electricity using moveable type in Centaur (a mythical beast) at Stamperia Valdonega of Verona on acid-free paper produced by Cartiere Fedrigoni. Etchings printed with the help of Manuela Candini at the Laboratorio di Sperimentazioni Grafiche Leoni-Whitman, in Bologna, a stone's throw from Aldrovandi's Collection. Assistance with calendula dyeing, printing and mica cutting provided by Kate Erb. For Lucy R. Sprague who loved the theater and all things extraordinary


*TEXT*


Before the Renaissance was born curiosity was scorned as part of human pride. But with the new age curiosity raged and the cabinets opened wide. Upon unlocking the cabinet door all was visible, ceiling to floor. Every inch a wonder at a single gaze, a collection of oddities arranged to amaze. Mermaid bones and bezoar stones, anthropomorphic roots and asbestos suits, celestial rocks and vegetable clocks. Fossils and simples lined the walls, mirrors on ceilings pictured it all. Including the viewer within the grand scheme, the universe presented without a seam. Through the tunnel-like halls shewn the temples of knowledge, from the Tyrolean Alps to the Roman College. Rows upon rows of curios into the infinite perspective they go. Layers on layers of drawers and shelves with a dwarf to guide us. A wonder themselves to pontificate for prelates, illuminaries and scholars with a pointer in hand and a dainty collar. The collectors esteemed to awe and surprise, to display "the world" and all it comprised. All was included in an encylopedic theme, a hall of wonders, an impossible scheme. No distinctions drawn, no need to specialize. The first public museums were to dazzle the eyes. The first wonder rooms or eclectic museums were of Hellenistic Greece, though not in lyceums. They did not appear in secular spaces, but arose in temples or sacred places. The oddities elencated by Pliny and such were grouped about for all to touch. Heroes' bones and meteorites, natural wonders and marvelous sights. Animals embalmed and ethnographic lore, coconuts, relics, trophies and more. Spaces sacred in medieval times also offered more than chimes. Reptiles hanging from the vaults, evil spirits to assault, ornate cups of ostrich eggs with griffins' claws as twisted legs. Giants' bones and Roman jars storing relics from near and far. The first collections of Renaissance fame were formed by individuals hungry for names. Curiosity and study drove the lot of scientists and nobles who collected and bought rarities which they labeled and slot in the requisite categories everyone sought. Nature by numbers, connect the dots, a coloring book not devoid of thought. An exercise in eclecticism where art and nature suffered no schism. A garden of Eden, art and nature united. Not a notion neglected nor exception oversighted. Nature was a text to collect and display which differed but barely from Aristotle's day. Faces and figures in nature abounded, on anthropomorphic forms collections were grounded. Contours of saints were found in marble (artists completed designs which were garbled). Nature provided the inspiration (artists just finished the decoration). But how could such an enormous hall come to be filled floor, ceiling and wall? A collector could not collect it all without a voyage spring, summer and fall. Voyages were often completed in youth after which missionaries conveyed the truth of material culture in foreign lands, of footless birds and ankle bands, of feather capes and instrument seeds. Amateur satellites fulfilled their needs. It was not imperative to travel far to find an oddity to fill a jar. For even that which did not exist was fabricated to complete the list. Strange fruits of the sea presented, eagerly by local fishmongers aware of the hunger for odd new creatures to specially feature. Charlatans often fooled the teacher. Pieces were found in various ways through miners, falconers and Moorish galley slaves. Apothecaries offered insight as well from items displayed which they did not sell. Theaters of nature in this way created were sideshow burlesques, hotly debated. Yet when reason prevailed and curiosity sated these otherworldly objects were soon ill-fated. But what became of the mandrake roots, the magic lanterns and lobster claw flutes? Coral, ivory and carved cherry pits, virtuosities to tickle the wits? Though collections of wonder were broken asunder some vestigial pieces outlived the species. Descecrated, desiccated, dusty perhaps, yet amusing artifacts divorced from their past. Now revealed as doctored frogs with lizards' tails and fishes jaws or unicorn horns in absence of proof fashioned from a narwhale tooth, or prehistoric axes as lightning stones. And dinosaur bits for giants' bones or antelope horns for griffin claws. What we see now was not what it was. All that we know of this marvelous show is its documentation row by row. Only in lists do the collections exist, inventories penned by the sleight of wrist. Catalogs published and prints commissioned were eternal guarantees of such visual missions. A world of wonders in one closet shut was shattered, dissected, divided and cut into other collections based upon themes most specialized. Of schools and museums the collections themselves furthered scientific learning in providing the samples for the truly discerning. New philosophers profited from the material amassed when ignoring the precepts explained from the past. Though not just for science was knowledge gained forever more but for those places we now frequent, based on wall, ceiling and floor.