Perma-Pet Sculptures by Noadi's Art

For the 1992 novel A Case of Curiosities, see Allen Kurzweil. For the 2002 novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, see The Cabinet of Curiosities. For the 2009 Janes Addiction box set, see A Cabinet of Curiosities

Category: Image - :Musei Wormiani Historia.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"Musei Wormiani Historia", the frontispiece from the Museum Wormianum depicting Ole Worms cabinet of curiosities.

Cabinets of curiosities (also known as Kunstkammer, Wunderkammer, Cabinets of Wonder, or wonder-rooms) were encyclopedic collections of types of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art (including cabinet paintings) and antiquities. "The Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater. The Kunstkammer conveyed symbolically the patron's control of the world through its indoor, microscopic reproduction."Francesaco Fiorani, reviewing Bredecamp 1995 in Renaissance Quarterly 51.1 (Spring 1998:268-270) p 268. Of Charles I of England's collection, Peter Thomas has succinctly stated, "The Kunstkabinett itself was a form of propaganda"Thomas, "Charles I of England: The tragedy of Absolutism", A.G. Dickens, ed. The Courts of Europe (London) 1977:201. Besides the most famous, best documented cabinets of rulers and aristocrats, members of the merchant class and early practitioners of science in Europe, formed collections that were precursors to museums.