The conceptualization of time and space in the memory theatre of Giulio Camillo (1480?–1544)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5617/nm.3394Abstract
In the 17th century collections became ideally more or less the presence of all things material. Interest leaned towards the mundane and the common and collecting became a gathering of everything. This trend can already be seen to some extent in the natural history collections of the 16th century. As a counterbalance to this I would like to put forward in this paper the idea that the 16th century collections pictured the whole universe as a construction combining time and space. It was not the intention just to fill rooms with collected material examples but to present the phenomena by showing their boundaries and to help the spectator to understand the building blocks of the universal hierarchy. The theatrum mundi – or curiosity cabinet, as 16th century collections are more commonly referred to – was conceived as a presence of all that existed in one place. Instead of collecting everything, and claiming that such a collection would represent the world as it is (or as it can be perceived by the senses), rhetorical themes, abstract ideas and universal structures were visualized by means of displaying the strangest objects from the most faraway places. The function of such displays was to bridge the gap between the universal logos2 and the human logos. Logos meaning reason and structure is the opposite of myth and personal sensory experience and as such includes thinking, speech, relations and regularities. The concept can be used both in reference to universal order and to the faculties of the human mind.
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