Athanasius Kircher (c.1601-1680)

We have too little space even just to list all Athanasius Kircher’s interests: Egyptology and Sinology, geology and astronomy, religion, medicine, mathematics, music… His was a time when the boundaries between fact and belief were vague, enabling Kircher’s intellect to roam: in Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica (1641) alone, he canters from inquiries into magnetism and gravity to divine love, that other great attractor – of souls. In fossilised sauropod bones, Kircher saw the remains of giants; in Plato, he discovered the location of Atlantis. Hermes Trismegistus – great favourite of occultists and alchemists – was unmasked by him as both Moses and Confucius. Portrait of Athanasiu