Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus" title="Society of Jesus" >S.J.</a> (sometimes erroneously spelled Kirchner; 1602–1680) was a 17th-century <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_people" title="German people" class="mw-redirect" >German</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus" title="Society of Jesus" >Jesuit</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholar" title="Scholar" class="mw-redirect" >scholar</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath" title="Polymath" >polymath</a> who published around 40 major works, most notably in the fields of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism" title="Orientalism" >Oriental studies</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology" title="Geology" >geology</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine" title="Medicine" >medicine</a>. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boscovich" title="Roger Boscovich" class="mw-redirect" >Roger Boscovich</a> and to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci" title="Leonardo da Vinci" >Leonardo da Vinci</a>for his enormous range of interests, and has been honored with the title "Master of a Hundred Arts".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_Kircher#cite_note-Woods108-2" >[2]</a> A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades.

Kircher claimed to have deciphered the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs" title="Egyptian hieroglyphs" >hieroglyphic writing</a> of the ancient <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_language" title="Egyptian language" >Egyptian language</a>, but most of his assumptions and translations in this field were later found to be nonsensical. He did, however, correctly establish the link between the ancient Egyptian and the modern <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_language" title="Coptic language" >Coptic languages</a>, and some commentators regard him as the founder of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptology" title="Egyptology" >Egyptology</a>. He is known to have read the work of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Wahshiyya" title="Ibn Wahshiyya" >Ibn Wahshiyya</a>, who had proposed the link between ancient and Coptic Egyptian centuries earlier.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" >citation needed</a>]

Kircher was also fascinated with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinology" title="Sinology" >Sinology</a> and wrote an encyclopedia of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China" title="China" >China</a>, in which he noted the early presence there of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorian_Christians" title="Nestorian Christians" class="mw-redirect" >Nestorian Christians</a> while also attempting to establish links with Egypt and Christianity that modern scholars regard as largely imaginary.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" >citation needed</a>]

Kircher's work in geology included studies of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano" title="Volcano" >volcanoes</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil" title="Fossil" >fossils</a>. One of the first people to observe microbes through a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microscope" title="Microscope" >microscope</a>, Kircher was ahead of his time in proposing that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death" title="Black Death" >plague</a> was caused by an infectious <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism" title="Microorganism" >microorganism</a> and in suggesting effective measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Kircher also displayed a keen interest in technology and mechanical inventions; inventions attributed to him include a magnetic clock, various <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton" title="Automaton" >automatons</a> and the first <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone" title="Megaphone" >megaphone</a>. The invention of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_lantern" title="Magic lantern" >magic lantern</a> is often misattributed to Kircher, although he did conduct a study of the principles involved in his Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae.

A scientific star in his day, towards the end of his life he was eclipsed by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism" title="Rationalism" >rationalism</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes" title="René Descartes" >René Descartes</a> and others. In the late 20th century, however, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic" title="Aesthetic" class="mw-redirect" >aesthetic</a>qualities of his work again began to be appreciated. One modern scholar, Alan Cutler, described Kircher as "a giant among seventeenth-century scholars", and "one of the last thinkers who could rightfully claim all knowledge as his domain".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_Kircher#cite_note-3" >[3]</a> Another scholar, Edward W. Schmidt, referred to Kircher as "the last <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath" title="Polymath" >Renaissance man</a>". In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_of_Misconceptions" title="A Man of Misconceptions" >A Man of Misconceptions</a>, his 2012 book about Kircher, John Glassie writes that while "many of Kircher's actual ideas today seem wildly off-base, if not simply bizarre,"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_Kircher#cite_note-4" >[4]</a> he was "a champion of wonder, a man of awe-inspiring erudition and inventiveness," whose work was read "by the smartest minds of the time."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_Kircher#cite_note-5" >[</a>

Athanasius Kircher

Attachments