Met lit. opg. - Met reg. Exhibitions are never, and never have been, above politics. Rather, technologies of display and ideas about science and objectivity are mobilized to tell stories of progress, citizenship, racial and national difference. Description of the changing relati…
In 1500 few Europeans considered nature an object worthy of study, yet within fifty years the first museums of natural history had appeared, chiefly in Italy. Vast collections of natural curiosities - including living human dwarves, "toad-stones, " and unicorn horns - were gathe…
In 1500 few Europeans regarded nature as a subject worthy of inquiry. Yet fifty years later the first museums of natural history had appeared in Italy, dedicated to the marvels of nature. Italian patricians, their curiosity fueled by new voyages of exploration and the humanist r…