Athanasius Kircher lived at a time when a wealth of information was coming to Rome from the missions — many of them Jesuit-run — around the world.  Missionaries were documenting new plants, animals, cultures, and natural phenomena.  Stationed in Rome himself, Kircher collected these reports and artifacts from abroad and corresponded with scientists and academics throughout Europe.  His writings — more than 40 texts — compile, report, and expand upon many different fields from linguistics to Egyptology to paleontology to magnetism and more.  Living at the end of the age of Renaissance polymaths, he has been called “the last man who knew everything.” His scientific contributions were largely hit-or-miss, many of them having been corrected or negated by later findings.  Often, historians have emphasized these failures to paint a picture him as anything from a well-meaning but failed scientist to an outright charlatan.  This bias, however, fails to recognize the value of his overall body of work.  More recently, some … Continue reading →