Ferrante Imperato's Cabinet of Curiosities

“…sought to dignify his thirty years of diligent collecting. Bearing in mind that the most important European princes had devoted themselves to creating museums, it seems evident that his real aim was to ennoble his own activity. Not only did the creation and enrichment of a museum constitute an occupation worthy of a nobleman; they were also a means of acquiring renown and prestige and of turning the owner’s home into an almost obligatory sight for everyone… The popularity of the cabinet of curiosities had for a time the effect of overturning rigid social hierarchies, giving the collector the unique opportunity of attracting important personages of royal blood to his own home and of guiding them through his museum.” Giuseppe Olmi, “Science – Honour – Metaphor: Italian Cabinets of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Impey and MacGregor, eds., The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth- Century Europe (1985)

Olaus Worm's Museum