The influences that led to the Renaissance were already at work in Italy, and, as a result, the first great collections began to form. A reawakening of interest in Italy’s classical heritage and the rise of new merchant and banking families at this northern Mediterranean gateway to the Continent produced impressive collections of antiquities, as well as considerable patronage of the arts. Outstanding among the collections was that formed by Cosimo de’ Medici in Florence in the 15th century. The collection was developed by his descendants until it was bequeathed to the state in 1743, to be accessible “to the people of Tuscany and to all nations.” In order to display some of the Medici paintings, the upper floor of the Uffizi Palace (designed to hold offices, or uffizi) was converted and opened to the public in 1582. Indeed, many of the palaces holding such collections were open to visitors and were listed in the tourist guides of the period.

Royal collections

Elsewhere in Europe, royal collections were developed. King Matthias I of Hungary maintained his paintings at Buda and kept Roman antiquities at Szombathely Castle during the 15th century. Maximilian I of Austria acquired a collection for his castle in Vienna. Samples of both scientific material and art were featured in the “green vaults” of the Dresden palace of Augustus of Saxony, while the archduke Ferdinand of Tirol housed a varied collection that included Benin ivories and Chinese paintings at Ambras Castle near Innsbruck. Other notable central European collections included those of the Holy Roman emperor Rudolf II at Prague and of Albert V, duke of Bavaria, who from 1563 to 1571 had buildings designed and erected to house his collections in Munich. The collection of the Polish king Sigismund II Augustus was housed at Wawel Castle, Kraków.

Royal patronage was crucial to the encouragement of the arts at this time. Rudolf II sponsored astrologers and alchemists as well as artists. Francis I of France invited famed French and Italian craftsmen and artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, to rebuild and embellish his château at Fontainebleau, and there he kept his outstanding collection of art. In England Henry VIII gave his attention to music and thus did not form a collection of significance. He was responsible, however, for the appointment in 1533 of a King’s Antiquary, whose task was to list and describe the antiquities of the country. (Similar appointments were made subsequently by the Habsburg monarchs and by King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden.) It was not until the 17th century that the first important royal collection was formed in England by Charles I, only to be much dispersed after his execution in 1649. Following the Restoration, Charles II also maintained a collection, but this was lost in a fire at Whitehall Palace in 1698. Early in the reign of Charles II, displays of arms and armour were being prepared at the Tower of London; clearly intended for the public benefit, these displays marked an important step in the development of a museum of the Royal Armouries.

Specialized personal collections

The developing interest in human as well as natural history in the 16th century led to the creation of specialized collections. In Italy alone more than 250 natural history collections are recorded in that century, including the fine herbarium of Luca Ghini at Padua and the more eclectic collection of Ulisse Aldrovandi at Bologna. Other notable natural history collections of the time elsewhere in Europe were those of Conrad Gesner, Félix Platter, and, a little later, the John Tradescants, father and son. Among the specialized historical collections were those of portraits of great men assembled by Paolo Giovio at Como, the archaeological collection of the Grimani family of Venice, and the fine collection of illuminated manuscripts gathered by Sir Robert Cotton in England. A number of the latter had been acquired from monasteries closed during the Reformation. In due time these various collections found their way into museums. So did the collections of Ferrante Imperato of Naples, Bernard Paludanus (Berant ten Broecke) of Amsterdam, and Ole Worm of Copenhagen.

A collection such as these was normally known as a cabinet in 16th-century England and France, while in German-speaking Europe the equivalents Kammer or Kabinett were used. Greater precision was sometimes applied, the terms Kunstkammer and Rüstkammer, for example, referring respectively to a collection of art and a collection of historical objects or armour. Natural specimens were to be found in a Wunderkammer or Naturalienkabinett. In England the term gallery, borrowed from Italian galleria, referred to a place where paintings and sculpture were exhibited. One Italian collection of natural specimens was called a museo naturale.

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Museums of the Western World

In 1565 Samuel van Quicheberg published a work on the nature of collections, advocating that they represent a systematic classification of all materials in the universe. His view reflects a spirit of system and rational inquiry that had begun to emerge in Europe. Collections of natural and artificial objects were to play an important part in this movement. This can be seen in antiquarian studies, in the work of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc at Aix-en-Provence in France early in the 17th century, for example, or in the classification of the plant and animal kingdoms by Carolus Linnaeus a century later. For the less-specialized collector, works such as Museographia, by Casper F. Neickel (pseudonym of Kaspar Friedrich Jenequel), published at Leipzig in 1727, were generally available to aid in classification, care of a collection, and the identification of potential sources from which collections might be developed.

Collections of learned societies

Another product of the age was the learned society, many of which were established to promote corporate discussion, experimentation, and collecting. Some commenced as early as the 16th century. Better-known societies, however, date from later years; examples are the Royal Society in London (1660) and the Academy of Sciences in Paris (1666). By the turn of the century, organizations covering other subject areas were being established, among them the Society of Antiquaries of London (1707), and learned societies were also appearing in provincial towns. This was the beginning of a movement that, through the collections formed and the promotion of their subjects, contributed much to the formation of museums in the modern meaning of the term.