Curiosités

The terms cabinet de curiosités (Kunstkammer and Kunstkabinett, in German), chambre des merveilles or cabinet des merveilles (Wunderkammern, in German) refer to the places where, at the time of the great explorations and discoveries of the 16th and 17th centuries, a multiplicity of rare or strange objects from the three branches of biology considered at the time were brought together: animal, plant and mineral; as well as objects from the fields of geology, ethnography, archaeology and so on.