Athanasius Kircher, S.J. (1602 - 1680)

Athanasius Kircher was an influential German Jesuit, occultist, and polymath who worked for much of his life in Rome at the cusp of the Enlightenment. He was a prolific writer, producing over 40 lavishly illustrated books on topics ranging from the arts and linguistics to the physics and earth science. A timeline of his life events and publications is below. Of particular interest to historians of geology are the various conceptual models Kircher used to draw conclusions about the Earth and its workings.

Autobiography (1682): THE LIFE of the Most Reverend Father Athanasius Kircher of the Society of Jesus, a man celebrated throughout the entire world.

Those published books by Kircher (or derived from his works) that include discussion of geological objects and processes include:

 kircher

 

Ars Magnesia (1631)

  • describes how an eruption of Vesuvius caused magnetic needles to shift direction and marvels at the phenomenon where a red-hot piece of iron is drawn to a magnet.

Magnes sive de arte magnetica opus tripartitum (1641, 1643, and 1654)

  • discusses meteorological and terrestrial processes

Itinerarium Exstaticum (1656)

Iter Exstaticum Secundum (1657)

Mundus Subterraneus (1664-1678)

China Monumentis, qua sacris qua profanis (1667)

  • also abbreviated in English by John Ogilby in Nieuhof, J., 1673, An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, Emporer of China deliver'd by their excellencies, Peter de Goyer and Jacob de Keyzer, at his imperial city of Peking

The Vulcano鈥檚: or, Burning and Fire--vomiting Mountains, Famous in the World (1669)

  • contemporaneous partial translation of the Preface from Mundus as well as paraphrased excerpts of Books 1 and 2.

  • transcription available

Timeline of Kircher's life events and publications

Classical woodcut-style page bottom image.