| 1684 Books (Study Guide): Musaeum Clausum Contributor(s): Books, LLC (Editor), Books, LLC (Created by) |
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ISBN: 1156355184 ISBN-13: 9781156355183 Publisher: Books LLC OUR PRICE: $16.63 Product Type: Paperback Published: September 2010 * Not available - Not in print at this time * |
| Additional Information |
| Physical Information: 0.05" H x 7.44" W x 9.69" (0.15 lbs) 26 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Musaeum Clausum. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Musaeum Clausum (Latin for Sealed Museum), also known as Bibliotheca abscondita, is a tract written by Sir Thomas Browne first published posthumously in 1684. The book contains short descriptions of supposed, rumoured or lost books pictures and objects. The subtitle describes the book as an inventory of remarkable books, antiquities, pictures and rarities of several kinds, scarce or never seen by any man now living. The tract's date is unknown: however, an event from the year 1675 is cited. Like Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Musaeum Clausum is a catalogue of doubts and queries, only this time, in a style that anticipates Jorge Luis Borges, a 20th century Argentinian short-story writer who once declared: "To write vast books is a laborious nonsense, much better is to offer a summary as if those books actually existed." Browne however was not the first author to engage in such fantasy. The French author Rabelais in his epic Gargantua and Pantagruel also penned a list of imaginary and often obscene book titles in his "Library of Pantagruel" an inventory which Browne himself alludes to in Religio Medici. As the 17th century scientific revolution progressed the popularity and growth of antiquarian collections, some claiming to house highly improbable items grew. Browne was an avid collector of antiquities and natural specimens possessing a supposed unicorn's horn, presented to him by Arthur Dee . Browne's eldest son Edward visited the famous scholar Athanasius Kircher, founder of the Museo Kircherano at Rome in 1667, whose exhibits included an engine for attempting perpetual motion and a speaking head, which Kircher called his Oraculum Delphinium. He wrote to his father of his vi...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=360240 |