A Polyhedron to Die for: Geometry Materialized in a Hainhofer Cabinet

• In Event: The Collection as Laboratory

Abstract

Dice in Kunstkammern were normally something to be used with games, especially the sonorous Singwürfeln (singing dice). A 26-faced Singwürfel in the Hainhofer art cabinet in Uppsala (1626- 1631) is however more complex than that, albeit considered a gaming device since at least 1694. It combines numbered square and triangular faces into a polyhedron geometrically described as a pseudorhombicuboctahedron. At the time, this polyhedric shape was undescribed in contemporary literature (e.g., Johannes Keppler’s Harmonices Mundi, 1619), and continued as such until 1905.
In regard to the status of the pseudorhombicuboctahedron in the early seventeenth century, I would argue that the Singwürfel earns its presence in the cabinet in its capacity of a geometrical novelty, rather than as a gaming device. Hainhofer’s predilection for scientific innovation in other areas further suggests a conscious inclusion. It is, in all effect, geometry materialised.

Author

• Greger Sundin, Uppsala Universitet