Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher
Author: Paula Findlen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2004-08-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135948445

First published in 2004.Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) -- German Jesuit, occultist, polymath - was one of most curious figures in the history of science. He dabbled in all the mysteries of his time: the heavenly bodies, sound amplification, museology, botany, Asian languages, the pyramids of Egypt -- almost anything incompletely understood. Kircher coined the term electromagnetism, printed Sanskrit for the first time in a Western book, and built a famous museum collection. His wild, beautifully illustrated books are sometimes visionary, frequently wrong, and yet compelling documents in the history of ideas. They are being rediscovered in our own time. This volume contains new essays on Kircher and his world by leading historians and historians of science, including Stephen Jay Gould, Ingrid Rowland, Anthony Grafton, Daniel Stoltzenberg, Paula Findlen, and Barbara Stafford.-

Egyptian Oedipus

Egyptian Oedipus
Author: Daniel Stolzenberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2013-04
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 0226924149

Stolzenberg presents a new interpretation of Kircher's hieroglyphic studies, placing them in the context of seventeenth-century scholarship on paganism and Oriental languages. Situating Kircher in the social world of baroque Rome, with its scholars, artists, patrons, and censors, he shows how Kircher's study of ancient paganism depended on the circulation of texts, artifacts, and people between Christian and Islamic civilisations.

Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher
Author: Joscelyn Godwin
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Total Pages: 96
Release: 1979-01-01
Genre: Germany
ISBN: 9780500810224

Athanasius Kircher (1602 - 80) stand out as one of the last all-encompassing minds. For this true Renaissance man, the whole world was a glorious appearance of God waiting to be explored. Kircher was a Jesuit and an archeologist, a phenomenal linguist and an avid collector of scientific instruments. He deciphered archaic languages, experimented with alchemy and music therapy, optics and magnetism. Egyptian mystery wisdom, Greek, Cabbalistic and Christian philosophy met on common ground in his work. Kircher's sumptuous volumes were revered throughout Europe, and his gigantic oeuvre is represented here through striking engravings - most of them reprinted for the first time - together with annotations and an introduction to Kircher's life and work.

A Study of the Life and Works of Athanasius Kircher, ‘Germanus Incredibilis’

A Study of the Life and Works of Athanasius Kircher, ‘Germanus Incredibilis’
Author: John Edward Fletcher
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 654
Release: 2011-08-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004216324

Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit in 17th-century Rome, was an enigma. Intensely pious and a prolific author, he was also a polymath fascinated with everything from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the tiny creatures in his microscope. His correspondence with popes, princes and priests was a window into the restless energy of the period. It showed first-hand the seventeenth-century’s struggle for knowledge in astronomy, microscopy, geology, chemistry, musicology, Egyptology, horology... The list goes on. Kircher’s books reflect the mind-set of 17th-century scholars - endless curiosity and a substantial larding of naiveté: Kircher scorned alchemy as the wishful thinking of charlatans, yet believed in dragons. His life and correspondence provide a key to the transition from the Middle Ages to a new scientific age. This book, though unpublished, has been long quoted and referred to. Awaited by scholars and specialists of Kircher, it is finally available with this edition.

A Man of Misconceptions

A Man of Misconceptions
Author: John Glassie
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2013-11-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1594631891

A Scientific American Best Science Book of 2012 An Atlantic Wire Best Book of 2012 A New York Times Book Review “Editor's Choice” The “fascinating” (The New Yorker) story of Athanasius Kircher, the eccentric scholar-inventor who was either a great genius or a crackpot . . . or a bit of both. The interests of Athanasius Kircher, the legendary seventeenth-century priest-scientist, knew no bounds. From optics to music to magnetism to medicine, he offered up inventions and theories for everything, and they made him famous across Europe. His celebrated museum in Rome featured magic lanterns, speaking statues, the tail of a mermaid, and a brick from the Tower of Babel. Holy Roman Emperors were his patrons, popes were his friends, and in his spare time he collaborated with the Baroque master Bernini. But Kircher lived during an era of radical transformation, in which the old approach to knowledge—what he called the “art of knowing”— was giving way to the scientific method and modern thought. A Man of Misconceptions traces the rise, success, and eventual fall of this fascinating character as he attempted to come to terms with a changing world. With humor and insight, John Glassie returns Kircher to his rightful place as one of history’s most unforgettable figures.

The Man Who Knew Everything

The Man Who Knew Everything
Author: Marilee Peters
Publisher: Annick Press
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2017-10-10
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781554519736

Even the man who knew everything was wrong some of the time.

China Illustrata

China Illustrata
Author: Athanasius Kircher
Publisher:
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1987
Genre: Travel
ISBN:

The Celebrated Museum of the Roman College of the Society of Jesus

The Celebrated Museum of the Roman College of the Society of Jesus
Author: Georgius de Sepibus
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: Obelisks
ISBN: 9780916101879

Athanasius Kircher's catalogue of the prodigious early museum (a Wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities) which he assembled and arranged at the Roman College of the Society of Jesus was completed by his assistant Giorgio de Sepi for publication in 1678. This publication, with many expertly-engraved illustrations, is one of the most sumptuous and most curious examples of high baroque book production. It has memorable images of exotic birds and animals, of one of the first magic-lanterns or projected images, its text hints at the presence of machines which are little short of computers, it also illustrates numerous wonderful machines, be those clockwork automata, chiming and ambulant clocks, or multiplying and distorting mirrors. It is perhaps most famous for the exceptionally lavish fold-out plates of Roman obelisks which it contains, each page dedicated to one of the obelisks re-discovered in baroque Rome or new obelisks with pseudo-hierolgyphics by Kircher, devised according to his own scheme of interpretation of hieroglyphics as pictograms or, in baroque practice, emblems or impresa. 0A full facsimile, including foldout plates, is offered here, together with the first English translation of a notoriously problematic Latin text. There is also a commentary to the translation, identifying objects, sources and facts while also explaining something of the status which the museum and its description share, as epitomes of the scarcely-credible range of activities and disciplines in which Kircher involved himself. The commentary also identifies passages which refer to others of Kircher's numerous and prodigious works. The edition also contains an afterword, reflecting on the current state of scholarship on Kircher, his museum, and his world.