86 The Origin and Development of Museums. [ February, 
Switzerland, Genoa, Venice, Augsburg, Nurnberg, were at 
this time in a most favorable position for students. The largest 
trade of the world, from the East Indies, passing through these 
cities made them the most important centres of trade. The cel- 
ebrated house of the Fuggers, in Augsburg, possessed the whole 
north of South America, a country larger than Europe; and it 
was therefore easy for them to collect in their princely mansions 
the wealth and curiosities of the world. 
The desire to possess the largest collections increased in a wa 
easily to be understood, especially as the invention of the printing- 
press had now afforded facilities for making the facts known to 
the world in a very short space of time. As the trade was in 
the hands of merchants, of course the collections were in their 
hands also, or in those of private students more or less widely - 
known, as, for instance, Agrippa, Monardus, Paracelsus, Valerius 
Cordus, Hieronymus Cardanus, Matthiolus, Conrad Gesner, 
Agricola, Belon, Rondelet, Aldrovand, Thurneisser, Ortelius, 
from Italy, France, Switzerland, and Germany. England, too, 
was not behindhand, and Hackluyt gives an index of private col- 
lections in that country. The arrangement and contents of these 
collections are given in printed lists, the first known of which is 
that by Samuel Quickelberg, a learned physician of Amsterdam, 
published in 1565, in Munich. Shortly after, Conrad Gesner 
published the catalogue of the collection of Johann Kenntmann, 
a prominent physician in Torgau, Saxony. The whole collection — 
contained in a cabinet with thirteen drawers, each with two par- 
titions, about sixteen hundred objects: minerals, shells, and marine 
animals ; and yet it was thought to be so rich that students made 
long journeys to see it, and Kenntmann stated that the objects 
were collected at such an expense as few persons would be able 
or willing to afford. Similar catalogues are published by Mer- 
cati, from Rome, Imperati, from N aples, Palissy, from Paris, 
-and Thurneisser, from Berlin. 
I cannot omit here to mention that nearly all interest shown 
in science was manifested by Protestants, the few honorable ex- 
ceptions being mostly priests, who understood the times, and the 
necessity of being always among the foremost, in order not to lose 
their ascendency. The followers of Loyola were, soon after the 
institution of the order, eager enough to gain distinction even 
here. Following the history of our subject, our attention is called 
to the very striking fact that all departments of science before the 
Reformation fell gradually into the power of the predominant 
