Wonders of America: The curiosity cabinet as a site of representation and knowledge

Abstract

This essay examines the representation of the New World in cabinets of curiosities throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Despite the contrasting nature of these private collections and the varying degrees of access that European states had to such exotic objects, the characterization and assessment of the Americana displays a consistent similarity. It is argued here that the meaning of these items within the microcosm of the cabinets can be comprehended by the intellectual enterprise that sustained the gathering of curiosities and by the representation of Amerindian societies in moral history works.