The Collections Built by Globalization

From 1350 to 1750, the European understanding of the natural world shifted dramatically, as the period contained the beginnings of global exploration and the ensuing expansion of European control across the world. As the Europeans ventured out of Europe, the map of the world began to expand, not only the places themselves, but the discovery of “previously unknown things,” caused them to question their current understanding of the world. As trade and exploration expanded, so did the new artifacts, plants, and animals discovered, challenging the previously understood knowledge taught by the ancient philosophers. In attempting to understand these changes, early natural philosophers in Europe attempted to decipher and organize this new knowledge, doing so via collections of new specimin. The early European collections of worldly artifacts that expanded during the period of globalization between 1350 and 1750 are illustrative of an overall societal shift in the way that knowledge was understood and interpreted by European natural philosophers, a shift from Aristotle’s casual understanding to early observational analysis and classification.