Man of Misconceptions : The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change (9781101597033) (26 page)

God “sets limits”
:
Vita
, p. 91.

“lest I fall in with the label of fraud”
: Ibid., p. 92.

“I am hurt”
: In Stolzenberg, “Egyptian Oedipus,” pp. 124–125.

multivolume work he planned to call
Universal History
: A complete transcript and translation of Kircher's outline for this book is in Stolzenberg, “Egyptian Oedipus,” Appendix 2, pp. 343–357.

“Father Atanase Kircher is having his Egyptian”
: Jean Baptiste-Doni to Mersenne, September 30, 1635, in Paul Tannery and Cornelis de Waard, eds.,
Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne
, vol. 5 (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1959), p. 412.

It quoted Barachias Nephi
: Stolzenberg details the way in which “Barachias Nephi” morphed into the Arab “Barachias Albenephius” or “Barachias Abenephius” in this and subsequent books. See Stolzenberg, “Egyptian Oedipus,” pp. 27, n. 13; 47–48; 51, n. 79. Here, for the general-interest reader, he will continue to go by “Barachias Nephi.”

Mount Horeb inscription
: See Stolzenberg, “Egyptian Oedipus,” pp. 118–119.

“many arguments”
: In Ingrid D. Rowland,
The Ecstatic Journey: Athanasius Kircher in Baroque Rome
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 87–88.

“unabashedly proclaimed”
: Curran, “Renaissance Afterlife of Ancient Egypt,” p. 127.

Chapter 8. Habitation of Hell

“it happened that”
:
Vita
, p. 87.

Fabio Chigi
: See Ingrid D. Rowland, “Etruscan Inscriptions from a 1637 Autograph of Fabio Chigi,”
American Journal of Archaeology
93, no. 3 (1989), pp. 423–428; also see Paula Findlen, “Scientific Spectacle in Baroque Rome: Athanasius Kircher and the Roman College Museum,” in Mordechai Feingold, ed.,
The Jesuits and the Scientific Revolution
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002), p. 282.

Ramon Llull
: See Umberto Eco,
The Search for the Perfect Language
, trans. James Fentress (London: Fontana Press, 1997), pp. 53–69.

“enthusiastic capacity for fatiguing detail”
: Bach, “Athanasius Kircher and His Method,” p. 26.

Description of the Maltese observatory
: Ibid., pp. 51–52, nn. 97, 99, 100; and Rowland,
Ecstatic Journey
, p. 10.

asking for a reassignment to Egypt or to the Holy Land
: Stolzenberg, “Egyptian Oedipus,” pp. 77–78, n. 18.

“I found such a Theater of Nature”
: Athanasius Kircher,
The Vulcano's, Or, Burning and Fire-Vomiting Mountains, Famous in the World, with Their Remarkables: Collected for the Most Part Out of Kircher's Subterraneous World, and Exposed to More General View in English
(London: J. Darby, for John Allen and Benjamin Billingsly, 1669), p. 34.

“mariners are wont to allure it”
: In Reilly,
Athanasius Kircher, S.J.
, p. 67.

Kircher's account of the earthquakes in Calabria
:
Vita
, pp. 133–147.

paid homage to Lucretius, Virgil, Lucan, and Dante
: See Findlen,
Possessing Nature
, pp. 184–192.

“miracles of subterraneous nature”
: Kircher,
The Vulcano's
, p. 34; for his account of exploring Vesuvius, see pp. 35–36.

Chapter 9. The Magnet

“delayed” him in Rome . . . very dark “states of spirit”
: In Stolzenberg, “Egyptian Oedipus,” pp. 129–130, nn. 193, 195.

Instruments in Kircher's cubiculum
: Gorman, “Between the Demonic and the Miraculous.”

limestone stalactites, ostrich eggs . . . and other things
: Ingrid D. Rowland, “Athanasius Kircher and the Musaeum Kircherianum,”
Humanist Art Review
(n.d.), www.humanistart.net/kircher_idr/kircher.htm.

As long as circumstances “held me in Rome”
:
Vita
, p. 94.

“someone in each college of the entire Society”
: In Baldwin, “Athanasius Kircher and the Magnetic Philosophy,” p. 85.

one Jesuit in Lithuania
: Michael John Gorman, “The Angel and the Compass: Athanasius Kircher's Geographical Project,” in Paula Findlen, ed.,
Athanasius Kircher
:
The Last Man Who Knew Everything
(New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 247.

“rattle my adversaries' distrust of my work”
:
Vita
, p. 94.

Holy Roman Emperor as new patron
: See Stolzenberg, “Egyptian Oedipus,” pp. 129–131, nn. 193–196.

“We must always maintain that the white I see”
: Ignatius of Loyola,
Personal Writings
, p. 358.

“absurda, indigna, et intolerabilis”
: In Martha Baldwin, “Magnetism and the Anti-Copernican Polemic,”
Journal for the History of Astronomy
16 (1985), p. 159.

“Woe to all iron implements”
: Athanasius Kircher,
Magnes, sive De Arte Magnetica Opus Tripartum Quo Praeterquam Quod Universa Magnetis Natura
(Rome: Scheus, 1641), p. 544. This is a rather famous line.

“wished to philosophize prudently”
: In Baldwin, “Magnetism and the Anti-Copernican Polemic,” p. 160.

“that prodigal of nature”
: In Martha Baldwin, “Kircher's Magnetic Investigations,” in Daniel Stolzenberg, ed.,
The Great Art of Knowing: The Baroque Encyclopedia of Athanasius Kircher
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Libraries, 2001), p. 28.

“coition or union”
: Robert Fludd,
Mosaicall Philosophy: Grounded Upon the Essentiall Truth or Eternal Sapience: Written First in Latin, and Afterwards Rendred into English
(London, Printed for H. Moseley, 1659), p. 299.

“sucketh and attracteth”
: Ibid., p. 245.

Kircher's studies of heliotropic plants
: See Baldwin, “Athanasius Kircher and the Magnetic Philosophy,” p. 350.

“kind of material”
: In Hankins and Silverman,
Instruments and the Imagination
, p. 29.

“pulls what is similar to its own nature”
: In Baldwin, “Athanasius Kircher and the Magnetic Philosophy,” p. 381.

“putrid, contagious and noxious to men”
: Ibid., p. 403.

tarantulas and “tarantellas”
: See ibid., pp. 429ff.

vegetable lamb plant of Tartary
: Ibid., pp. 341–343.

“earned not insignificant applause”
:
Vita
, p. 94.

“a very large volume on the magnet”
: In Eugenio Lo Sardo,
Iconismi e Mirabilia da Athanasius Kircher
(Rome: Edizioni dell'Elefante, 1999), pp. 13–14.

“I am approaching the point”
: Descartes to Constantijn Huygens, January 5, 1643, in Theo Verbeek and H. J. M Bos, eds.,
The Correspondence of René Descartes 1643
(Utrecht: Zeno Institute for Philosophy, 2003), pp. 15–16.

“the Magnet by Kircherus”
: Huygens to Descartes, January 7, 1643, ibid., pp. 17–18
.

Descartes's own explanation for magnetic attraction and polarity
: Park Benjamin,
History of Electricity (The Intellectual Rise of Electricity) from Antiquity to the Days of Benjamin Franklin
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1898), pp. 357–361.

“flipping through them”
: Descartes to Huygens, January 14, 1643, in
Correspondence of René Descartes 1643,
pp. 19–20.

Chapter 10. An Innumerable Multitude of Catoptric Cats

Procession of the newly elected pope
: Evelyn,
Diary and Correspondence
, vol. 1, pp. 130–131.

“Father Kircher . . . showed us many singular courtesies”
: Ibid., p. 108.

“far surpassed the competition”
: Gorman, “Between the Demonic and the Miraculous.”

“You will exhibit the most delightful trick”
: Translation ibid.

magic lantern
: See W. A. Wagenaar, “The True Inventor of the Magic Lantern: Kircher, Walgenstein or Huygens?”
Janus: Archives Internationales pour l'Histoire de la Médecine et pour la Géographie Médicale
66 (1979), pp. 194–207.

dissected the eyeballs of bulls
: Reilly,
Athanasius Kircher, S.J.
, p. 82.

“We say ‘Magna' on account”
: Athanasius Kircher,
Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae
 . . . ††2 verso. See Bach, “Athanasius Kircher and His Method,” p. 231.

“For just as the wise men of the Hebrews”
: Kircher,
Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae
, in Bach, “Athanasius Kircher and His Method,” p. 267, n. 112.

“He has established the Sun”
: Kircher,
Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae
, pp. 5–6, in Bach, “Athanasius Kircher and His Method,” p. 68, p. 87, n. 28.

Kircher's theories about fireflies, chameleons, jellyfish
: Reilly,
Athanasius Kircher, S.J.
, pp. 77–80.

“thickness of the atmosphere”
: Ibid., p. 84.

“rules which must be followed”
: Ibid., p. 83.

why the sky is blue
: Kircher,
Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae
, p. 70, in Bach, “Athanasius Kircher and His Method,” p. 91, n. 41.

“mites that suggested hairy bears”
: In Torrey, “Athanasius Kircher and the Progress of Medicine,” p. 253.

“so tiny that they are beyond”
: Athanasius Kircher,
Scrutinium Physico-Medicum Contagiosae Luis, Quae Pestis Dicitur . . .
(Rome: Mascardi, 1658), p. 45, in Rowland,
Ecstatic Journey
, p. 105.

image-projection . . . a Jesuit in the court wrote him
: Johann Gans to Kircher, February 3, 1645, Archivio della Pontificia Università Gregoriana (APUG), ms. 561, fol. 123r; Johann Gans to Kircher, Vienna, June 24, 1645, APUG 561, fol. 135r; “The Correspondence of Athanasius Kircher: The World of a Seventeenth Century Jesuit” (hereafter Athanasius Kircher Correspondence Project), http://archimede.imss.fi.it/kircher.

“an eminent man of optics”
: John Bargrave,
Pope Alexander the Seventh and the College of Cardinals
(1662), ed. James Craigie Robertson ([London]: Camden Society, 1867), p. 134.

“Egyptian wanderer”
: In Rowland,
Ecstatic Journey
, pp. 19–20.

“desire of joining to our work on Optics”
: Athanasius Kircher, Praefatio ad Lectorem,
Phonurgia Nova, sive Conjugium Mechanico-Physicum Artis & Naturae Paranympha Phonosophia Concinnatum . . .
(Kempton, England: Rudolph Dreherr, 1673), p. [C] verso.

“tone architecture”
: Ibid., p. 111.

“Should need arise”
: Ibid., p. 112.

infamous cat piano . . . “captured living cats”
: Kaspar Schott,
Magia Universalis Naturae et Artis, sive Recondita Naturalium et Artificialium Rerum Scientia
 . . . (Würzburg, 1657–1659), pp. 372–373; cited in Hankins and Silverman,
Instruments and the Imagination
, p. 246, n. 2.

“notable abuses and faults”
: Luigi Zenobi and Athanasius Kircher,
The Perfect Musician
, trans. Bonnie J. Blackburn and Leofranc Holford-Strevens (Kraków: Musica Iagellonica, 1995), p. 67.

“such wretched compositions”
: Ibid., p. 73.

“the same twittering”
: Ibid., p. 75.

“The mechanical production of music”
: In Jim Bumgardner, “Kircher's Mechanical Composer: A Software Implementation,”
Proceedings of the 2009 Bridges Banff Conference
(Banff, Canada, 2009).

“Father Kircher devoured my book”
: Mersenne to Boulliaud, January 16, 1645,
Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne
, vol. 13 (ed. Cornelis de Waard, 1977), p. 320.

“a more or less direct influence”
: Roman Vlad, “Kircher: A Knowledgeable Musicologist,” in Eugenio Lo Sardo,
Iconismi e Mirabilia da Athanasius Kircher
(Rome: Edizioni dell'Elefante, 1999), p. 66.

Chapter 11. Four Rivers

“grounds for praise of God” . . . “elude the empty machinations,”
Vita
, pp. 94–95.

Kircher's account of the re-erection of the obelisk in Piazza Navona
:
Vita
, pp. 96–101.

“I would even venture to say”
: T. A. Marder, “Borromini e Bernini a Piazza Navona,” in Christoph Luitpold Frommel and Elisabeth Sladek, eds.,
Francesco Borromini: Atti del Convegno Internazionale
(Rome, 2000), p. 144.

“Tatu of the Indies”
: Baldinucci,
Life of Bernini
, p. 37.

“One marvels not a little”
: Ibid., p. 38.

“The whole Earth is not solid”
: Kircher,
The Vulcano's
, p. 3.

The fountain as a reflection of Kircher's geology
: Rowland,
Ecstatic Journey
, pp. 15, 90.

“the lodestone of heaven”
: Kircher,
Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae
, p. 2, in Bach, “Athanasius Kircher and His Method,” p. 318, n. 84.

Bernini “was forever inventing”
: Simon Schama,
Landscape and Memory
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), p. 299.

“it is difficult to trace”
: Ibid., p. 302.

Work on the fountain; grain shortage
: Giacinto Gigli,
Diario Romano, 1608–1670
(Rome: Tumminelli, 1957), p. 322.

“a terrible thing happened”
: Ibid., pp. 334–335.

“he sent to me most eloquent letters”
:
Vita
, p. 101.

Kircher cited a tremor in his right hand
: See Stolzenberg, “Egyptian Oedipus,” p. 144, n. 10.