Collecting Naturalia: the Earth, the Sea
The focus of the gallery will be on two French cabinets with ten drawers each. Simple and linear, their purpose is more functional than decorative: indeed, they contain within them the richness of the Terraqueous Orb.
Within one cabinet, there is a collection showcasing the wonders of the Earth: marbles, breccias, alabasters, paesina stones, hard stones, silicified woods, that enchant with their variety of colors, designs, degrees of hardness, and transparency. The other tells the story of the Sea, with shells, fossils, shark teeth, and corals.
These two cabinets are part of the naturalia collecting tradition. Dating back to the late 18th, early 19th century, they testify to the desire to organize knowledge, to bring order to chaos: containers whose purpose is to overcome the dichotomy between disorder and order, they also represent the possibility of infinite journeys through space and time, with just a simple gesture like opening a drawer.
