Athanasius Kircher's Subterranean World

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.

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

• 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) and Iter Exstaticum Secundum (1657) <---- ** Current Focus **

  • early discussion of Earth's inner processes, explained through a dreamplay. Precursor to Mundus.

• Mundus Subterraneus (1664-1678)  <---- ** Current Focus **

  • encyclopedic work on natural phenomena related to the Earth as the Geocosm

• 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’s: or, Burning and Fire--vomiting Mountains, Famous in the World (1669)

  • contemporaneous partial translation of the preface from Mundus (paraphrasing elements Books 1 and 2)
    

Timeline of Kircher's life events and publications