As a child of his time, Kircher participated in the modern scientific and spiritual revolution with the curiosity of a Baroque scholar in search of wonder, to which he added medieval intellectual rigor and the Jesuit's faith in divine authority.
The Museum Kircherianum, which Athanasius created at the Roman College, was a good example of his pronounced taste for science and the marvelous. Machines of all kinds are exhibited, as well as relics, manuscripts, wooden obelisks, infantile skeletons, Roman funerary vases, and even strange animals. More than the simple pleasure of collecting, this gathering of remarkable objects is revealing of Kircher's conception fo the scientific method: the use of inferences and hypotheses to extract new knowledge out of as much data as possible, collected on the most obscure subjects.
The collections of curiosities, which flourished in the 17th century among individuals and learned societies, shed light on the curiosity of the Baroque man and on his attraction for astonishment. These collections show the will to surprise of their owners, the desire to be dazzled of their visitors, and most of all the search for thrills of their builders.
Below, a small anthology revealing Kircher's curiosity, where we find the desire he had to amaze his readers and pique their curiosity.
Caption under the illustration (2nd sentence)
Non rota, nec ventus, sed lapis urget opus.
« It’s not a wheel; nor the wind, but a stone that does the job. »
Attributed to the philosopher Archytas of Taranto (435-347), the Archytas dove is a dove-shaped flying object that moves in circular movements thanks to a magnetic ploy.
Athanasius Kircher's China illustrata has been « for a long time a major source of information on China » in spite of mixing stories by Pliny, Marco Polo, and medieval travelers, as well as lived experiences of missionaries, or strange or unexplained phenomena. Although he was the author of one of the most important sinological encyclopedias of the 17th century, Kircher has apparently never been to China himself.
The treatise entitled Musurgia is a must: widely printed, it probably had an immense impact on 18th century European music. In this treatise, Kircher studied the different sound-producing systems. It presents anatomy plates, organ structures, or even birdsongs. This diagram represents the song of the nightingale reproduced in musical transcription, as well as the songs of the rooster (gallicinium), the hen (gallina), the cuckoo (vox cuculi), the quail (vox coturnicis) and what seems to be a talking parrot saying Χαίρε, or "hi" in Greek.
The captionof this engraving mentions hydrophylaciae: mountains acting as water reservoirs. The water they contain, like that of the seas, flows through canals and forms underground pockets.
The caption of this engraving mentions the pyrophylaciae: mountains acting as fire reservoirs, fueling the underground fire.