The Renaissance Room of Wonders

Renaissance cabinets of curiosities were not actually cabinets at all but entire rooms filled with an unlabeled mix of nature, art, and history. These bizarre collections acted as the chaotic, mysterious ancestors of today's tidy museums.

During the sixteenth century, European aristocrats and scholars crammed rooms with everything from exotic taxidermy to ancient Roman relics. Because modern scientific categories did not exist yet, they mixed religious artifacts with sea shells and gold coins in a single display. These rooms were meant to mirror the entire world in one space, sparking a sense of wonder that eventually evolved into our modern museum system. It was essentially the world's first attempt at organized knowledge.