Quiccheberg’s Containers: From Lädlein to Nation State

• In Event: Cabinetization and Compartmentalization in Early Modern Art and Science I

Abstract

One of the peculiar aspects of Quiccheberg’s Inscriptiones vel tituli theatric amplissimi, 1565, is his near obsession with storage and display equipment: box, baskets, shelves, lockable storage rooms, and so forth, all the way up to the buildings that hold the collections. In this paper, I examine the practicality of Quiccheberg’s concerns with containers: his interest in the mechanics of how one runs a collection on the scale he proposes, in order that it can best fulfill its pragmatic, prudential functions. Drawing upon a range of archival and material evidence, I also demonstrate how the Kunstkammer — as envisioned by Quiccheberg and put into practice by the Habsburgs, Wittelsbachs and others — already embodies the dialectic between security and access that characterizes modern knowledge producing institutions.

Author

• Mark A. Meadow, University of California, Santa Barbara