From Cultures of Natural History edited by Jardine, Secord and Spary
From Cultures of Natural History edited by Jardine, Secord and Spary |
Growing up, Ole Worm enjoyed an exceptional education. Also known as Ole Wurm or Olaus Worm, the Danish savant traveled to Germany, Italy, France, England, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. He studied under the famous taxonomist Caspar Bauhin, visited the famous cabinet of Ferrante Imperato, and modeled himself after the famous Aldrovandi. So it's not surprising that Worm enjoyed an exceptional career.
Worm's interests covered natural objects, human artifacts, mythical creatures and ancient inscriptions. He built one of the most well-known curiosity cabinets in Europe, and in 1655 posthumously published Museum Wormianum, or History of Rare Things describing the contents of his varied collections.
Worm passed along exceptional stories if he believed they came from reliable sources, describing the wondrous attributes of bezoar stones grown inside animal bodies, for instance. Yet he also advocated investigations of unusual objects where possible. Not surprisingly, he considered the authority of ancient "experts" a hindrance to clear thinking. Worm was the first to establish that the "unicorn horn" and narwhal tusks were actually one and the same, as he explained in a dissertation he delivered in 1638. He also disproved the spontaneous generation of lemmings (thought to fall from the sky, perhaps), though he didn't doubt the spontaneous generation of other organisms.
Beyond his contributions to natural history, Worm laid the foundations of modern archaeological surveys, recommending assiduous collection of information from every archaeological site.
For more information:
"Documentng the Factual and the Artifactual: Ole Worm and Public Knowledge" by Jole Shackelford in Endeavour Magazine, June 1999 issue
The Lore of the Unicorn by Odell Shepard
Cultures of Natural History edited by Jardine, Secord and Spary
The Discovery of the Past by Alain Schnapp
Cabinets of Curiosities by Patrick Mauries
Possessing Nature by Paula Findlen
Narrative text and graphic design © by Michon Scott - Updated August 21, 2005