Memória e conhecimento do mundo: coleções de objetos, impressos e manuscritos nas livrarias de Portugal e Espanha, séculos XV-XVII

Abstract

This article describes a period of time when the concept of specialized collecting did not yet exist (15th-17th century), when text and image, form and content were to be found together in one ensemble. In the Wunderkammer (Chambers of Wonders) and Wunderkabinett (Cabinets of Wonders) of the Late Modern Age, exotic objects, stuffed animals, paintings, prints, printed matter and manuscripts were gathered in the same space, reflecting an attempt to grasp the knowledge of the world. Men like Manoel Severim de Faria in Portugal and Jerônimo de Mascarenhas in Spain, both contemporaries of the Iberian Union, are among those who owned private libraries. Such men represented a kind of Renaissance scholar that disappeared with the advent of classification and scientific methods used in "collecting" and disseminated as of the second half of the 17th century.