The cabinet of curiosities
The origin of the modern museum: science, art and myth in one cabinet.
User:Mattes — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Kent Wang from Barcelona, Spain — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Kent Wang from Barcelona, Spain — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Kent Wang from Barcelona, Spain — CC BY-SA 2.0
A museum inside Salzburg cathedral showing the archdiocese's treasures and holdings across the centuries, including its historic cabinet of curiosities. The cabinet of curiosities is the most interesting part: it was a common European institution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where a prince or bishop gathered everything strange or rare into one room — seashells, animal bones, minerals, scientific instruments, objects from distant lands and things thought to be magical. Those rooms were the origin of the modern museum: before science was separated from art and from myth, all of it went into a single cabinet. Seeing one preserved explains how Europeans understood the world before classification. Alongside it are the cathedral's holdings: gold vessels, liturgical vestments, paintings, sculpture and musical instruments. The museum also gives access to a walkway above the cathedral's arches, offering an interior view down the nave from a height not normally available. The ticket may be combined with the archdiocese's other sites — ask, as it is better value.
The origin of the modern museum: science, art and myth in one cabinet.
An interior view down the nave from a height not normally available.
Gold vessels, vestments and musical instruments across the centuries.
Inside Salzburg cathedral, city centre
A European institution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: a room in which a prince or bishop gathered everything rare — shells, bones, minerals, instruments, antiquities and things believed miraculous. No distinction was made between a natural specimen, an artwork and a legend, and all were displayed together. From these rooms museums as we know them were born.
The cathedral itself is free, the neighbouring Residenz palace has its state rooms and gallery, and the Hohensalzburg fortress above the city is reached by funicular. Those three with the museum make one day, and a combined ticket may cover them — ask about the Salzburg Card.
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