Wunderkammer
Description :
Cabinet of curiosities, the forerunner of the modern museum, albeit with an emphasis on typology rather than chronology, its German name of "Wunderkammer" described it well, for it housed wonders ranging from rare shells and coins to narwhal horns, coral carvings and what we today would call ethnographic materials. Gentlemen and princes (probably from Roman times if not earlier) have collected the strange and the curious, from mummified mermaids to (stuffed) two-headed calves. They were particularly popular in the Renaissance. Antiquities and works of art might also be included, as well as fossils and other elements of natural history, but the first emphasis was on the strange and unnatural, and fakes were rife.
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