Places of Knowledge between Ulm and the Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century : The Kunstkammer of Johannes Faulhaber

Abstract

This article investigates how the Kunstkammer of Johannes Faulhaber, renowned mathematician and engineer of Ulm, functioned as a place dedicated to the advancement of mechanical-architectural knowledge. Examining several unstudied publications associated with his Kunstkammer and a previously unknown inventory, we reconstruct the collection and examine Faulhaber’s advertisement of it in printed catalogues. A comparison of Faulhaber᾽s collection with that of his contemporary Joseph Furttenbach the Elder highlights specifics of its focus and scope. The Kunstkammer was also a place of technology transfer, whereby aspects of Dutch military technology were introduced into the German context, and were in turn further disseminated through Faulhaber’s publications. In this sense, Faulhaber᾽s Kunstkammer can be understood as an entanglement of ‘places’ – both physical and printed.