Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World
Joscelyn Godwin
A monument to the Renaissance ideal of Universal Knowledge
With a passion for assembling and recording knowledge across all fields
of enquiry, Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) was by far the most learned
servant of his age; and in this century his fanciful theories have made him
a cult figure of the most peculiar fascination. His books on Egyptian
obelisks and hieroglyphs, volcanoes and geology, writing systems and
comparative religion, music and machines, magnetism and optics,
Rome and China, unicorns and dragons were definitive for their time.
And since for him pictures, diagrams and maps were a most effective
means to help convey his ideas, he commissioned the most
accomplished illustrators from all over Europe (more than 30 are
known by name) to produce wonderfully detailed representations of
whatever it was he wrote about. It is these engravings that are the
main focus of this volume – more than 400 of them painstakingly
reproduced, and furnished with explanations partly in
Kircher’s own words, and partly in those of Joscelyn Godwin,
one of the most erudite and engaging guides to the byways
of hermetic thought across the ages.
• A cornucopia of fantastical rarely-seen imagery of the
highest appeal to today’s sensibilities
• A full and fond account, not without irony, of one
of the most memorable thinkers of any age
Joscelyn Godwin is Associate Professor of Music
at Colgate University. Among his previous books
are Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Athanasius Kircher:
A Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge
and The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance, all
published by Thames & Hudson.
380 illustrations
28.0 x 25.0cm
320pp
ISBN 978 0 500 258606
September
£ 40.00
