Nature's Museums: Victorian Sciences and the Architecture of Display Book

Scientists in the medieval and early modern eras faced many obstacles to sharing their discoveries, among them the lack of organised, comparative collections of specimens. Such assemblages were almost exclusively in the hands of wealthy individuals, and scholars of more modest means had to content themselves with "cabinets of wonder," potpourris of natural curiosities whose message was often no more profound than "behold, death is near." One of the signal developments of the Victorian era, observes art historian Carla Yanni, was the building of great museums, accessible to both scholars and the interested public, to house large collections of fossils, minerals and other relics of the natural world. Some of these museums, such as London's Pantherion, offered astonishing and sometimes fictitious spectacles: in the Pantherion, for example, "stuffed animals were staged in frightening battles," while a great artificial swamp filled with sculptures of dinosaurs ringed the Sydenham Crystal Palace. Others, such as the incomparable Natural History Museum of London, became clearing houses for the exchange of scientific ideas in the age of Darwin and Huxley. By the 1880s science museums of all kinds had become popular destinations for family outings, and also the subject of considerable debate, with some scholars objecting to the supposed vulgarisation of knowledge to which spectacles inevitably led. But, Yanni notes, in their many forms these museums also became the "primary places of interaction between natural science and its diverse publics," allowing greater participation in learning and ultimately serving science well. Heavily illustrated with period engraving and architectural renderings, Yanni's book is a useful and entertaining contribution to the history of science. --Gregory McNameeRead More