Kunstkammer

I was reading "Making Marvels: Science and Splendor at the Courts of Europe," which is an exhibition catalog from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I came across the term "kunstkammer," or collections of oddities / marvels / wonders.  It turns out kunstkammer can be made up of naturalia, artificia, scientifica, exotica, memorabilia, and sacralia.  It looks like they left out things like erotica.  

Various 16th C through late 19th C rulers and princes became collectors of curiosities.  Other folks might assemble mere curiosity cabinets; the powerful put together rooms or whole houses.  It was propaganda:  who had the most magnificent toys?  Rulers would even ransack rival princes' collections in times of war.  

There was a practical side, a kunstkammer could have an alchemical lab or machine shop connected to it for a ruler's scholars to pursue ore and glass production, for the production of artillery calculators and clocks, or for the renaissance equivalent of the 3D printer, the rose lathe (which supposedly honed one's mental and ruling capacities).  

As I paged through the book, I recognized many of the items (I don't spend all my time at the MET in the Egyptian Wing, it just seems like it).  It appears that all these years of going to the MET and photographing brass, silver, and gold mechanical objects has been a subconscios attempt to build my own, virtual kunstkammer.  

And, in fact, considering the sorts of of knick-knacks I keep wanting to display on my shelves (along with the books books books books books!) I can only conclude that in some past life I must have been a curator.  

What I see now is that I need to have little niches for naturalia, artificia, scientifica, exotica, memorabilia, and sacralia.   Perhaps things could rotate.  That might mollify Mark's anti-clutter instincts.