The Seventeenth Century 103 



all, four folio pages were devoted to phosphors and the account was 

 accompanied with a woodcut of the Bononian stone. 



Museums may thus be considered as important as societies in the 

 dissemination of luminescence knowledge. One of the best known 

 was that of A. Kircher, whose interest in luminescence was both 

 extensive and detailed. This was the Museum Kircherianum, to be 

 considered in the next section. 



Athanasius Kircher and Kaspar Schott 



The first of the seventeenth-century scientists to pay particular 

 attention to all kinds of luminescences was a German Jesuit priest, 

 Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) , born at Geisa near Fulda about 

 the time Cascariolo made his famous discovery of the Bolonian phos- 

 phor. His interests ranged from the great to the small, from geology 

 to microscopy, and included mathematics, optics and other physical 

 subjects, biology, medicine, and miracles. He was also musician, 

 orientalist, and a great traveler, having taught at Miinster, Coin, 

 Coblentz, Mainz, and Wiirzburg, and having lived in Avignon, 

 Rome, and Vienna. 



Among Kircher's important works in science were the Ars Mag- 

 netica (1641) and the Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae (1646) . The 

 latter book was first issued at Rome, and another edition appeared 

 at Amsterdam in 1671. The frontispiece is reproduced as figure 6. 

 Both editions, folio works of some eight hundred pages, give the 

 same discussion of luminescence. Priestley (1772: 99) called the 

 work " a very capital performance." Chapters VI, VII, and VIII of 

 Book I dealt respectively with " The light inherent in animals," 

 " The marvelous light of certain things that are born in the sea," 

 and " On the luminescence of stones." Chapter VIII describes the 

 Bolognian stone in practically the same words as used in Ars Mag- 

 netica in 1641. Another publication was Mnndus Subterraneus 

 (1664) , in which luminescence is again discussed by Kircher. 



Kircher described the light of fireflies (Nitedulae, Lampades, or 

 Cicindelae) in detail, quoting Pliny but adding many observations 

 and opinions of his own. He wrote: '° 



I spent some time at Malta, where I found a great multitude of them 

 [fireflies] shining at night, and I collected a large number in order that 

 I might both observe their nature and investigate rather deeply the 

 origin of this kind of living light; and I noted that the animalcule 

 voluntarily, as I might say, at one time drew back and at another put 



-"The quotations are from Ars magna lucis et umbrae, Amsterdam, 1671, translated 

 by R. A. Applegate. 



