Wunderkammern

In the wonder chambers of the Early Modern period, extraordinary objects are gathered and presented to an exclusive audience. Due to their special properties and materials, the exhibited Artificialia, Naturalia, and Exotica are designed to evoke wonder in viewers. Aspects of storytelling play a crucial role in this context: regarding the literary prehistory of the wonder chamber or the interplay of multiple object biographies, due to narrative elements in forms of spatial arrangement, order, and presentation, or because of the serial and perspective-driven experiences of visitors. Closely linked to this, especially in the courtly context, is the political functionalization of wonder chambers. Collecting valuable items and the associated representation of knowledge generate cultural and symbolic capital. Practices of combination, distinction, and narration define areas of knowledge and solidify them institutionally. The contributions in the collected volume address these narrative, institutional, and material dimensions of wonder chambers in a theoretically and methodologically foundational manner and relate them to one another, thus attempting to make research at the intersection of literature, knowledge, and museum history productive for medieval studies and Early Modern research.