From apothecary shop to cabinet of curiosities

Image 1 is one of the oldest surviving depictions of a cabinet of natural historical curiosities: the Musaeum Calceolarii in Verona, in 1622. Image 2 is a roughly contemporary depiction of an apothecary's shop: a 'boutique pharmaceutique, ou antidotaire' in Lyon in 1637. The similarity of arrangement (compared in Image 3) is striking: in both cases, shelves holding innumerable vessels line three sides of a small room, framing a centrepiece on the far wall. Image 4 -- and image of an apothecary's shop from 1496 -- indicates how longstanding this basic arrangement was. 

This close family resemblance between apothecary shop and early cabinet of natural historical curiosities is no coincidence: the founder of the Musaeum Calceolarii was the leading apothecary of Verona, Francesco Calzolari (1522-1609), whose collections helped found the modern Museo di Storia Naturale in Verona. Moreover, the only earlier collection to be engraved in equally revealing fashion was also established by a leading apothecary: Ferranto Imperato (1550-1625) of Naples, in 1599.  The greatest Milanese collector of the period, Lodovico Settala (1550-1633), was also a prominent physician.  Far to the north, the great collector in Copenhagen, Ole Worm (1588-1654), was personal physician to the Danish king.

Why then did apothecaries play such a leading role in the establishment of natural history collections of this kind? The answer is closely related to their core medical practice.  The remedies which the early modern apothecary sold were all based on natural specimens: most were directly or indirectly derived from plants, others from animals or minerals. Needless to say, the most expensive remedies (and purportedly the most efficacious) were derived from the most exotic flora and fauna, harvested by the European merchants now travelling regularly to the furthest reaches of the globe.  But how were the apothecary's clientelle to know whether these expensive medicaments were genuinely derived from exotic ingredients, rather than inexpensive local ones? This is where the adjoining cabinets of curiosities offered more than purely intellectual satisfaction: to the sceptical customer, they demonstrated at the very least that the apothecary had access to the expansive networks necessary to source exotic materials from distant continents and oceans. These images therefore help introduce another respect in which medical practice gave rise to new means of grasping the natural world in all its diversity.

Credits: Howard Hotson (February 2019)