An Introduction to Museology - Elias Ashmole

Helloooo :)

As part of my course I will also be studying the history and background of museums and architecture/ art behind them.

Now I know this has nothing to do with my other posts but it all interweaves together and I love Elias Ashmole's work in general so here's an insight on his history and the similar interests that connect us to alchemy and its colorful distinguished art in its manuscripts.

• Elias Ashmole was born in Lichfield on 23 May 1617 and died in South Lambeth on 18/19 May 1692. 
• The 1640s saw a great revival of interest in the occult sciences (astrology, alchemy, natural magic), and Ashmole quickly assimilated the Neoplatonic–hermetic world-view within which the occult sciences seemed to have their natural place. But astrology was more than just an occult science: it could also be used as a weapon in a propaganda war.
• Ashmole also maintained a lifelong interest in various aspects of magic, especially in attempts to make spirits appear. Here the figure of John Dee, whose ‘conferences with angels’ had caused much scandal in Elizabethan England, loomed large. Ashmole collected Dee’s manuscripts, gathered all the information he could from Dee’s son Arthur, and planned a biography of the great magician. The biography never appeared, but the figure of Dee continued to haunt Ashmole for the rest of his life.
• Ashmole also became known, in his later years, as a great collector of manuscripts and other curiosities. His house at South Lambeth received visits from people such as Robert Hooke and Henry Oldenburg, often escorting foreign virtuosi. The collection of another antiquarian, John Tradescant, was also inherited after a lawsuit. Looking for a permanent home for these collections, Ashmole turned to the University of Oxford, offering to bequeath them to the University if it could find a suitable home for them. The University accepted the offer, and a fine new building was erected with a chemical laboratory in the basement, and display rooms above. The Ashmolean, England’s first public museum, received a royal visit in May 1683, and was opened to the public in June, with Dr Robert Plot as its first curator. 

The Ashmolean Museum has a medium sized collection of very good Pre-Raphaelite pictures, and there are various other places in Oxford to see their work.

The Ashmolean is one of the great museums in the world - and it can lay claim to be Britain's first official museum. Indeed, at the time of its founding, the term "museum" was unknown.

The Ashmolean was originally based on the idiosyncratic collection of natural history specimens collected by gardening pioneers John Tradescant (father and son). The Tradescants displayed their collection at their house in Lambeth, south London, but later deeded the curiosities to Elias Ashmole.

Ashmole in turn presented this jumble of natural and man-made oddments to Oxford University, where special buildings on Broad Street were created to house them. These buildings first opened their doors on May 24, 1683. The first Ashmolean was composed of three separate parts; the collection, a chemistry laboratory, and lecture rooms. The public was allowed to view the collection - a concession that irked some of the more supercilious academics of the period. The collection was enhanced by the addition of its prize possession, the Alfred Jewel, in 1718.

This Saxon relic is a gold-encrusted, enameled ornament intended to grace the end of a staff, or scepter. The association with King Alfred is uncertain, though the Latin inscription (which translates as "Alfred had me made") and the richness of the jewel makes it likely that only someone as powerful as Alfred could have been responsible for its creation. In the mid Victorian period the growing collection was split into natural and man-made divisions, with the former being used to create the new Oxford Museum of Natural History.

References:

www.ashmolean.org