The collections of the Royal Society of London, an innovative center for experimental natural philosophy founded at the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, drew on the culture of curiosity of the time. It displayed the hidden anatomy of many exotic creatures, such as this “Crocodile or ye Leviathan.”  To the lower left of this massive, tipped-in and folded engraving, is the Crocodile’s “Wesan” or wind-pipe. At the center bottom is the rattle of a rattle snake and to the lower left is an elephant’s tusk. Other exotic creatures included the similarly Biblically named “Behemoth” or Hippo below. More humble creatures also, however, received serious attention such as the anatomy of salmon guts. Another feature of the culture of curiosity was an interest in play, and more specifically in the ways that Nature herself was playful. Nature appeared to play when she crossed the boundaries separating herself from the human world by producing seeming works of art, while humans played by producing seeming works of nature. At the far bottom, among curious stones in the Royal Society’s collection are several with seemingly artful designs, such as a geometric Jasper and a “figured stone,” or a stone in which Nature appeared, as it were, to paint a landscape.

 

Recommended further reading:
Bredekamp, Horst. The lure of antiquity and the cult of the machine: the Kunstkammer and the evolution of nature, art, and technology. Princeton: M. Wiener Publishers, 1995.
Stagl, Justin. A History of Curiosity: The Theory of Travel, 1500-1800. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995.
Kenny, Neil. Curiosity in Early Modern Europe: Word Histories. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998.
R. J. W. Evans and Alexandar Marr, eds. Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.
Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and William R. Newman, eds.The Artificial and the Natural: An Evolving Polarity. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007.