Marianna Ferrara eduard iricinschi John Tresch andrea Maria nencini Moshe idel FlorenT serina silvia Fogliazza sergio BoTTa luca caMpione paola von Wyss-giacosa angelica Federici giovanni lapis gianluca piscini guillerMo Menéndez sánchez eMily pierini saBino perea yéBenes ephraiM nissan rossana Barcellona Mario gandini† Mariangela Monaca 89/2 (2023) Conflicts, Tensions, and Mythmaking at Eranos SMSR ISSN 0393-8417 SMSR STUDI E MATERIALI DI STORIA DELLE RELIGIONI 89/2 (2023) Conflicts, Tensions, and Mythmaking at Eranos Before and After World War ii Dipartimento di Storia, Antropologia, Religioni, Arte, Spettacolo S apienza U r niverSità di € 32,00 oma STUDI E MATERIALI DI STORIA DELLE RELIGIONI Fondata nel 1925 da Raffaele Pettazzoni 89/2 - LUGLIO-DICEMBRE 2023 Direttore responsabile / Editor-in-Chief: Alessandro Saggioro Vicedirettore / Deputy Editor: Sergio Botta Caporedattore / Chief of Editorial Committee: Marianna Ferrara Comitato di redazione / Editorial Committee: Julian Bogdani, Paola Buzi, Alberto Camplani, Tessa Canella, Serena Di Nepi, Pietro Ioly Zorattini, Mara Matta, Caterina Moro, Federico Squarcini, Lorenzo Verderame, Claudio Zamagni Segreteria di redazione / Editorial Secretariat: Andrea Annese, Ludovico Battista, Francesco Berno, Marinella Ceravolo, Angelo Colonna, Maria Fallica, Arduino Maiuri, Silvia Omenetto, Valerio Salvatore Severino, Maurizio Zerbini Comitato scientifico / Advisory Board: Rossana Barcellona (Università di Catania), Alessandro Bausi (Sapienza Università di Roma), Philippe Blaudeau (Université d’Angers), Anna Maria Gloria Capomacchia (Sapienza Università di Roma), Carlo G. Cereti (Sapienza Università di Roma), Giuliano Chiapparini (Università Cattolica di Milano), Francesca Cocchini (Sapienza Università di Roma), Riccardo Contini (Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli), Maddalena Del Bianco (Università di Udine), Carla Del Zotto (Sapienza Università di Roma), Francisco Díez de Velasco (Universidad de La Laguna), Jean-Daniel Dubois (Paris, EPHE), Giovanni Filoramo (Università di Torino), Armin W. Geertz (University of Århus), Gaetano Lettieri (Sapienza Università di Roma), Bruce Lincoln (University of Chicago), Christoph Markschies (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin), Annick Martin (Université de Rennes 2), Russell McCutcheon (University of Alabama), Santiago Carlos Montero Herrero† (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Enrico Norelli (Université de Genève), Guilhem Olivier (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), Tito Orlandi, Giulia Piccaluga (Sapienza Università di Roma), Emanuela Prinzivalli (Sapienza Università di Roma), Giulia Sfameni Gasparro (Università di Messina), Natale Spineto (Università di Torino), Kocku von Stuckrad (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Michel Tardieu (Collège de France), Roberto Tottoli (Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli), Hugh Urban (Ohio State University), Ewa Wipszycka (University of Warszawa), Elena Zocca (Sapienza Università di Roma) Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni perseguono nel loro campo speciale i fini della scienza e della cultura. Alla scienza storica contribuiscono facendo oggetto di storia la religione nel suo svolgimento. Alla cultura schiudono più larghi orizzonti, promuovendo una maggiore partecipazione del pensiero italiano alla conoscenza di forme e momenti di civiltà meno prossimi e meno noti. (Raffaele Pettazzoni 1925) Direzione: Dipartimento di Storia, Antropologia, Religioni, Arte, Spettacolo Sapienza - Università di Roma - Piazzale Aldo Moro 5 - 00185 Roma Fax 06 49913718 e-mail: smsr@uniroma1.it condizioni di abbonamento Anno 2023 (due fascicoli) Italia Estero € 40,00 € 65,00 Modalità di pagamento / How to Subscribe • Bonifico: BPER Banca - Iban IT96M0538711205000042708552 Causale: Abbonamento “SMSR” anno … • Ordine tramite sito web: www.morcelliana.net Per informazioni e richieste Editrice Morcelliana S.r.l. Via G. Rosa, 71 - 25121 Brescia / Tel. 030 46451 – Fax 030 2400605 E-mail: abbonamenti@morcelliana.it Amministrazione / Sales Management Editrice Morcelliana – Via G. 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Stampa: LegoDigit srl - Via Galileo Galilei 15/1 - 38015 Lavis (TN) Indicizzazioni /Indexing Ebsco Publishing Bibliographic Information Base in Patristics (BIBP) European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH) Index to the Study of Religions Online (Brill Publisher) Old Testament Abstracts Online (OTA) Catholic Biblical Quarterly Online (CBQ) Torrossa Gli scritti proposti per la pubblicazione sono sottoposti a doppio referaggio anonimo I fascicoli della rivista sono monografici STUDI E MATERIALI DI STORIA DELLE RELIGIONI Fondata nel 1925 da Raffaele Pettazzoni 89/2 (2023) Conflicts, Tensions, and Mythmaking at Eranos Before and After World War II pubblicati dal Dipartimento di Storia, Antropologia, Religioni, Arte, Spettacolo Sapienza - Università di Roma MORCELLIANA Stampato con il contributo della Sapienza Università di Roma Finito di stampare nel dicembre 2023 Sommario Sezione monografica / Theme Section Conflicts, Tensions, and Mythmaking at Eranos Before and After World War ii Marianna Ferrara - Eduard Iricinschi, Conflicts, Tensions, and Mythmaking at Eranos. The Study of Religions Before and After World War ii .. 439 John Tresch, Drawing the World Picture before Eranos. Jung and Einstein in 1917. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445 Andrea Maria Nencini, The Buddhist ‘Active Will’ in Caroline A. Foley Rhys Davids’ Eranos Lectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459 Marianna Ferrara, War, Salvation, and Rebirth at «Casa Eranos» . . . . . . 479 Eduard Iricinschi, Gnosis at Ascona: Modern Visions and Ancient Heresies in Times of War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503 Moshe Idel, The Eranos Myth of Integration: Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, Mircea Eliade, and Gershom Scholem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517 Florent Serina, Louis Massignon, the “Free Agent” of Eranos? . . . . . . . . . 539 Silvia Fogliazza, The “Goddess Theory” and the Eranos Mythology. Crafting an Archaeological Outlook for the Neolithic “Religion” . . . . . . . . . . 559 Sergio Botta, A Trickster at Eranos. A Note on the Use of the “Primitive” in Paul Radin’s Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581 Saggi / Essays Luca Campione, Materiali per una storia delle «religioni preistoriche». Dalla scoperta della caverna di Aurignac all’«animal religieux» di Armand de Quatrefages (1860-1868) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa, Struggling with Strange Idols. Categorizations of a Javanese Shadow Play Figure in the Early Modern Discourse on Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635 436 Sommario Angelica Federici, Patronage, Gender and Religion, the Case for Female Lay Patronage in Medieval Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657 Giovanni Lapis, The Theme of Asian Religions as a Challenge and an Opportunity for Nonconfessional Religious Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677 Gianluca Piscini, L’« athéisme » selon Origène d’Alexandrie . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699 Guillermo Menéndez Sánchez, Eracliano di Calcedonia contro i manichei. Un tentativo di ricostruzione . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717 Emily Pierini, The Glastonbury Experience. Healing and Transnationalism in the Goddess Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735 Sabino Perea Yébenes, El mago Pases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755 Note / Notes Ephraim Nissan, Fictionalised Imaginings of Hypatia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769 Rossana Barcellona, Società in trasformazione e paganesimi resilienti. Considerazioni intorno a un libro recente: G.A. Cecconi, Barbari e pagani, Laterza, Roma - Bari 2022 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 805 Materiali / Materials Mario Gandini†, Raffaele Pettazzoni nella memoria e negli studi (v). 1969 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 819 Notiziario / News Mariangela Monaca, Ugo Bianchi e la Storia delle religioni in Italia. Ripensare un Maestro nel centesimo anniversario della nascita . . . . . . . . . . . . Recensioni / Reviews Giuseppe Garbati, Al di là. Gli uomini, gli dèi, la morte in contesto fenicio [Anna Angelini], p. 855 - Sofia Boesch Gajano - Tersilio Leggio - Umberto Longo (eds.), Luoghi sacri e storia del territorio. L’Atlante storico dei culti del Reatino e della Sabina [Antonio Musarra], p. 857 - Dimitris Xygalatas, Ritual. Storia dell’umanità tra natura e magia [Luca Campione], p. 859 841 Struggling with Strange Idols Paola von Wyss-Giacosa Categorizations of a Javanese shadow play figure in the early modern discourse on religion* 1. A catalogue for the Gottorp Kunstkammer In 1651, Adam Olearius, a renowned scholar in the service of Duke Frederick iii of Gottorp, travelled to Enkhuizen, at the time one of the most important harbour cities in the Netherlands for the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie’s (VOC’s) trade with the East. Olearius was there to purchase a significant part of the collection of the late Dutch scholar and physician Bernardus Paludanus1. Olearius had already enriched the Gottorp holdings with objects of particular interest that he himself had brought back to Schleswig-Holstein from embassies to Russia and Persia in the 1630s2. But it was this second, large acquisition which, not least through its remarkable provenance, was to bestow upon the Gottorp collection and the cabinet of curiosities that would be installed in the ducal castle in 1653 its high reputation within northern Europe3. Olearius was a man of letters and a traveller, scientist, and writer interested in mathematics, geography, cartography, and history. Appointed as librarian and curator to the duke’s collection, he set it up in two large rooms of the castle. He authored a catalogue of the holdings, Gottorffische Kunst-Kammer, which was first published in 16664. The structure of the volume, conceived as * This article is a revised version of my chapter Une étrange idole: l’interprétation d’une marionnette javanaise et les débats sur l’idolâtrie à l’époque moderne, first published in F. Briegel (ed.), Actes du colloque “Matières à raisonner” (“Savoirs”, 2022), on line at: <https://savoirs.app/ fr/articles/> (09/23). I thank Françoise Briegel and Jean-François Bert. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and much-appreciated comments. 1 H.D. Schepelern, Naturalienkabinett oder Kunstkammer. Der Sammler Bernhard Paludanus und sein Katalogmanuskript in der Königlichen Bibliothek in Kopenhagen, in «Nordelbingen, Beiträge zur Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte» 50 (1981), pp. 157-182; H.D. Schepelern, Natural philosophers and princely collectors: Worm, Paludanus and the Gottorp and Copenhagen collectors, in O. Impey - A. MacGregor (eds.), The Origins of Museums. The Cabinets of Curiosities in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europe, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 1985, pp. 121-127. Cf. also H.J. Cook, Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age, Yale University Press, New Haven 2007. 2 Cf. his account of these travels: A. Olearius, Offt begehrte[n] Beschreibung der newen orientalischen Reise, Zur Glocken, Schleswig 1647, and A. Olearius, Vermehrte Moscowitische und Persianische Reysebeschreibung, Holwein, Schleswig 1656. 3 The cabinets in Gotha and Brandenburg, as well as the one in Copenhagen, were opened around the same time. 4 A. Olearius, Gottorffische Kunst-Kammer, Holwein, Schleswig 1666. On Olearius see K. Baumann et al. (eds.), Adam Olearius. Neugier als Methode, Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2017. Paola von Wyss-Giacosa, University of Zurich: paola@wyss-giacosa.ch SMSR 89 (2/2023) 635-656 636 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa a preliminary work, a “Prodromus”, as the author explained in his introduction, mirrored the order and taxonomy chosen for both natural things and artefacts in the Kunstkammer, describing and illustrating a selection of Gottorp’s treasured objects in 36 chapters and engravings. The main body of objects in the Kunstkammer, as Olearius stated, consisted of Naturalia. These natural specimens from the three kingdoms of vegetables, animals, and minerals were perceived to be a small-scale, central representation of God’s treasures and wonders5. Another category discussed by Olearius in his volume – one of the first collection catalogues of this kind written in German – was what we might term as antiquities and ethnographica6. Science historian Lorraine Daston discusses the seventeenth century’s specific mixture of amazement and curiosity, sensibility and attention towards the study of objects as part of a science which sought to draw overarching insights from the analysis of individual pieces, the particular. The objects and what was thought to be visualized in them were understood to be part of the statement of science and accordingly integrated into the argumentation and presentation of the same7. The material collected by the so-called antiquarians, the antiquitates sacrae – coins, gems, inscriptions, images of gods, monuments, and also, increasingly, artefacts brought to Europe from Asia and the Americas – subsequently became important for the youthful field of comparative religious studies. With the publication of his catalogue, Olearius clearly presented two of his main fields of interest to the reading public8. In the opening pages of the volume, he emphasized the usefulness of what he refers to as “Kunst- und Raritetenkammern” as places bringing together objects that could otherwise only be seen by embarking on long, dangerous journeys to distant shores9. Olearius commended those who built these collections, and their facilitation 5 A. Olearius, Gottorffische Kunst-Kammer, cit., introduction, s.p., and p. 1. Cf. P. Findlen, Possessing Nature. Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy, University of California Press, Berkeley - Los Angeles 1994; E. Jorink, Reading the Book of Nature in the Dutch Golden Age, 1575-1715, Brill, Leiden 2010. 6 For a pioneering terminological discussion, cf. M. Hodgen, Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 1964. On ethnographic holdings, cf. D. Collet, Die Welt in der Stube. Außereuropa in Kunstkammern der Frühen Neuzeit, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007; D. Bleichmar - P.C. Mancall (eds.), Collecting Across Cultures: Material Exchanges in the Early Modern Atlantic World, University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania 2011; D. Collet, Staging separation: Distant worlds in early museums, in L. Förster (ed.), Transforming Knowledge Orders: Museums, Collections and Exhibitions, Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn 2014, pp. 47-71. 7 L. Daston, Eine kurze Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Aufmerksamkeit, Karl-Friedrichvon-Siemens-Stiftung, München 2001, and L. Daston, Curiositas, Welterfahrung und ästhetische Neugierde in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, Wallstein, Göttingen 2002. 8 By his own declaration, he left Artificialia, works of human manufacture and representation, and Scientifica, such as clocks, astrolabia, and mechanical models, for later publications, which were however destined not to see the light owing to his untimely death in 1671. 9 On the history of Kunstkammern and cabinets of curiosities, cf. M. Marrache-Gouraud, La légende des objets. Le cabinet de curiosités réfléchi par son catalogue (Europe, xvie-xviie siècles), Droz, Genève 2020; K. Pomian, Le musée, une histoire mondiale, Gallimard, Paris 2020; A. Schnapper, Le géant, la licorne et la tulipe. Les cabinets de curiosité en France au xviie siècle, Flammarion, Paris 1988. Struggling with Strange Idols 637 of research and science, and even more so those who, like Duke Frederick iii, organized and presented their holdings in such a way that access could be granted to a broader public. The catalogue, by the author’s declaration, described things that were actually on display and could be seen in the principal chambers. For the plates, a copious group of etchings depicting the most significant holdings, as well as key aspects and concepts in their presentation, the unknown artist, no doubt following Olearius’ instructions, used different styles and principles of visualization10. The volume opened, in the first two chapters and relative engravings, with clothes and weapons from foreign nations and peoples, such as Chinese and Mexicans, Persians, Tartars, and Russians. The third chapter was dedicated, more specifically, to “Greenlanders” and their peculiar apparel, which the author pointed out that he had been able to observe directly when four captives were brought to Gottorp by courtesy of the Danish King11. The corresponding illustration showed the people, as well as a runic calendar, a sledge, skis, and a kayak. Remarkably, the fourth and last ethnographic chapter and its visual apparatus were devoted to a series of artefacts grouped and labelled by Olearius as “lauter Abgötter”, namely “nothing but false gods” or “idols” (Fig. 1). My aim is to explore this category of objects within the holdings that the Gottorp curator identified as “idols”. Looking at the (re)presentation and reception by his contemporaries of a set of artefacts arranged in a particular museal space, I intend to present a case study on early modern religious discourse, namely on the temporal and spatial dimensions and possible stages in the dissemination and diffusion of idolatry. The analysis of the pictorial rendering of “idols” in the abovementioned engraving is a noteworthy example of the cultural practice of early modern times, rooted in an antiquarian tradition, of the autopsy of material evidence12. It serves here as a foil upon which to sketch the broader discursive context and then to set the focus on a particular object within the collection, which, despite not being featured pictorially in this catalogue, clearly had a strong attraction for the visitors and, as it would seem, the curator too, correspondingly leaving traces in different source documents. Pieced together here, these comments and notes and images enable a clear identification of the artefact. Furthermore, they enable the reconstruction of a transnational exchange of ideas, pictorial illustrations, and material objects among a group of notable scholars, with broad connecA. Olearius, Gottorffische Kunst-Kammer, Holwein, Schleswig 1666, introduction, s.p. The encounter is described in A. Olearius, Vermehrte Moscowitische und Persianische Reysebeschreibung, Holwein, Schleswig 1656, Book 3, Chapter 4, pp. 163-179. Cf. T. Hill, “mügen sie wol in gemein Wilde genandt warden”. Adam Olearius’ Beitrag zur Erforschung Grönlands und der Inuit, in K. Baumann et al., Adam Olearius, cit., pp. 133-143. 12 Cf. P. von Wyss-Giacosa, Through the eyes of idolatry: Pignoria’s 1615 argument on the conformità of idols from the West and East Indies with Egyptian gods, in G. Tarantino - P. von Wyss-Giacosa (eds.), Through Your Eyes: Religious Alterity and the Early Modern Western Imagination, Brill, Leiden 2021, pp. 103-144. 10 11 638 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa tions beyond confessional boundaries, not least through their material and visual sources as well as their methods. 2. Idols – an intriguing category of object In the engraving commissioned by Olearius for plate iv in his catalogue, we see the finely executed representations of five artefacts. From left to right: first, a Thai Buddha statue explained to be an “Indian Pagode”; next, two Egyptian figures, identifiable as an Ushabti and an Osiris (the latter shown twice, front and back); concluding the line-up, the representation of an “idol of the Nordic people (‘Nordländer’) of the Davis Strait”, which could simply have been a puppet to play with or, possibly, a shamanistic statuette representing an Inuit auxiliary spirit13. The only two-dimensional object, placed behind the Buddha and the Ushabti, and “hanging” on an imaginary wall of this otherwise totally neutral space, is a Russian icon of the Moscow school. In the catalogue, it is said to depict Saint Nicolai, but more likely shows Saint Sergius. All of the statuettes displayed in the plate are rendered in a correct relative size14. The selection presented by Olearius in the detailed engraving and briefly explained in the catalogue is more than a random collection of single artefacts. The staging of Egyptian, Asian, and American “idols” in one plate, and not least the inclusion, albeit in a higher position than all of the other objects, of a Russian icon (whose veneration in the Orthodox Church Olearius had described and explicitly criticized in his travel account)15, is a very deliberate statement on idolatry by the Lutheran scholar, both with regard to theories on its possible origins and diffusion, and to its condemnation. The volume on the Gottorp Kunstkammer contains many references to the literature consulted by Olearius, who in his function as the court’s librarian was also very active in the organization and acquisition of books. For his studies on the holdings, the curator adopted a comparative method and made use of travel accounts and scholarly tracts. One of the authors repeatedly quoted by Olearius was Athanasius Kircher. In the first volume of his profusely illustrated, highly influential magnum opus, Oedipus Aegyptiacus (Rome, 1652-1654), the Jesuit polyhistor had 13 In his Reysebeschreibung, 1656, Olearius also comments on Greenlanders being pagans and briefly describes a figurine in the Gottorp holdings that was originally in Paludanus’s collection and was recognized by the Greenlanders when he showed it to them. Clearly, this is the artefact Olearius reproduced in plate iv as “Abgott der Nordländer bey der Strate Davis”, albeit with no mention of the object’s provenance. 14 Cf. H. Spielmann (ed.), Gottorf. Im Glanz des Barock. Kunst und Kultur am Schleswiger Hof 1544-1713 (“Die Gottorfer Kunstkammer”, vol. ii), Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Schleswig 1997. The Buddha statue measures 17 cm in height, the Ushebti 11 cm, and the Osiris figure 20.3 cm. The “Nordic idol” is no longer extant; Olearius describes it as half an ell tall, that is, approximately 25 cm. 15 A. Olearius, Vermehrte Moscowitische und Persianische Reysebeschreibung, Holwein, Schleswig 1656. On icons, cf. Book 3, Chapter 26, pp. 294-298. Struggling with Strange Idols 639 presented a theory on idolatry. His conjecture saw the origins of all paganism in Egypt, from where it then was to have spread through time and space16. Objects brought to Rome by fellow Jesuits informed and inspired Kircher’s scholarly practices. The illustrations of these same objects in books such as Oedipus became, for other scholars, heuristic tools in their own right. The Jesuit pater’s argument for an Egyptogenetic origin of all later expressions of idolatry influenced the reception of artefacts from distant cultures and areas, as did the ethnographic objects he selected and had rendered in book illustrations as proof of his argument. They biased the thoughts about as well as the representation and media staging of ethnographic collectables in several important early modern publications and collections across Europe17. Plate iv of the Gottorp catalogue, with its deliberate arrangement of Egyptian artefacts and ethnographic pieces, is evidence of the impact of Kircher’s broadly debated theory. An even more specific case in point for the influence of the Jesuit pater’s visually grounded argument, and for Olearius’s method, relying on the scholarly literature of the time, is the classification and naming of the Thai Buddha figure in the ducal chambers as an “Indian Pagode”. While “Indian” at the time could refer to both the “West and East Indies” alike (namely, to America and/or Asia), since the sixteenth century the term “Pagode” had been used in travel literature for “heathen” temples and gods exclusively from an Asian context18. As I have argued elsewhere, the Gottorp curator based his interpretation of the small Thai statue on the chapter dedicated to “modern” idolatry in the first volume of Kircher’s Oedipus. More specifically, on the basis of direct comparison of the figurine with the illustrations contained in the book, he thought that one of them, a very simple engraving in Kircher’s Syntagma v bearing the caption “Pagodes Indorum Numen”, shared enough major similarities with the Gottorp piece to allow for an analogous identification – and he labelled the Buddha accordingly19. On a broader level, the knowledge exhibited in plate iv offers evidence of a historical discourse about eastern and western religions that argued by way of and was based on material culture and, more generally, visual representation. The “idols” selected by Olearius for his publication were not only an ensemble of objects to see. What the public was presented with in 16 A. Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus, (“Simia Aegyptia sive De Idololatriae Aegyptiacae ad aliarum Barbararum Gentium idololatriam affinitate”, vol. i, Syntagma v), Vitale Mascardus, Rome 1652, pp. 396-424. 17 Cf. P. von Wyss-Giacosa, Investigating religion visually: The role of engravings in Athanasius Kircher’s China illustrata, in «Asdiwal» 7 (2012), pp. 119-150, and Ead., “As Reflections in a Mirror”: Kircher’s pictorial argument on modern paganism in the light of Pignoria, in «Revue de l’histoire des religions» 239, 2 (2022), pp. 257-295. 18 Cf. s.v. “Pagode”, in H. Yule - A.C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive, ed. by W. Crooke, Murray, London 1903 (or. ed. 1886). 19 Cf. P. von Wyss-Giacosa, Ein thailändischer Buddha in Gottorf. Zur Bedeutung materieller Zeugnisse im frühneuzeitlichen Idolatrie-Diskurs, in A.C. Cremer - M. Mulsow (eds.), Objekte als Quellen der historischen Kulturwissenschaften. Stand und Perspektive der Forschung, Böhlau, Wien - Köln - Weimar 2017, pp. 211-224. 640 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa this remarkable engraving was in fact much more: it was a way of seeing, a method, and a theory. The curator’s pictorial representation of this group of specific artefacts is a noteworthy and valuable source document. Given the often general or erroneous classification of things by early modern authors, without such illustrations it is usually difficult to identify the single artefacts that circulated in this period and entered collections, both small and large, thereby inspiring or ostensibly confirming theories on idolatry. The same goes for the Gottorp Kunstkammer too. Lists, inventories, diaries, and letters clearly prove that more artefacts in the holdings were interpreted and displayed as idols – not just the few pieces pictorially documented in the volume. Indeed, it was rather frequent for foreign objects to be classified and signified as pagan idols. In some cases, today there is enough circumstantial evidence for us to allow at least a tentative reconstruction of the impact of a given object (or object category). In this case, my intended focus is the – incorrect – classification through time of one specific Gottorp piece, an Indonesian shadow puppet. I will explore the thought process that led to its perception as a “West-Indian Vitzli-Putzli” using a microhistorical methodology, as suggested by Carlo Ginzburg, thus by carefully tracing and reading clues in order to reconstruct cultural and discursive dimensions20, and proposing a brief narrative of how and why this object was classified as such, and of how it was consequently exhibited in Gottorp and later in Copenhagen’s Royal Cabinet of Curiosities21. I argue that, puzzling as it may seem at first, the general categorization of this Javanese figure as an idol, and its erroneous geographical location by different early modern viewers, is in fact very valuable evidence for us today, in that it exemplifies the methods and theories – and not least the pitfalls – of what at the time was an ongoing and lively debate. 3. Discourses on idolatry in a museum space One of the key seventeenth-century discourses on idolatry dealt with its origin and development through time as a misguided form of religion22. Scholars drew upon a broad range of sources for their investigations. Objects were of great importance: antiquities were considered a point of departure, but there 20 Cf. C. Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2013. 21 B. Dam-Mikkelsen - T. Lundbaek (eds.), Ethnographic Objects in the Royal Danish Kunstkammer 1650-1800, Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen 1980, p. 140, Inv. No. EHa1. 22 Cf. M. Mulsow, Antiquarianism and idolatry: The historia of religions in the seventeenth century, in G. Pomata - N. Siraisi (eds.), Historia, Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe, MIT Press, Cambridge 2005, pp. 181-209; J. Sheehan, Sacred and profane, idolatry, antiquarianism and the polemics of distinction in the seventeenth century, in «Past & Present» 192 (2006), pp. 35-66; J.-P. Rubiés, Theology, Ethnography, and the Historicization of Idolatry, in «Journal of the History of Ideas» 67, 4 (2006), pp. 571-596; C. Bernand - S. Gruzinski, De l’idolâtrie. Une archéologie des sciences religieuses, Éditions du Seuil, Paris 1988; D. Barbu, Idolatry and the History of Religions, in «Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni» 82, 2 (2016), pp. 537-570; Id., Naissance de l’idolâtrie. Image, identité, religion, Presses universitaires de Lièges, Lièges 2016; C. Ginzburg, Medals and shells: On morphology and history, once again, in «Critical Inquiry» 45, 2 (2019), pp. 380-395. Struggling with Strange Idols 641 was also a notion of “idolatry in practice” which played an increasingly important role on the back of more recent material evidence stemming mainly from the cultures of Asia and Mesoamerica. The “exotic” artefacts brought back to Europe by merchants and missionaries were regarded as valuable for comparative studies on deviation from true religion23. Idées reçues, the observations of different travellers, and contemporary theories on the progress and diffusion of idolatry were thus applied to and measured against what were considered by the scholars to be real “idols”, not just examples described in writings but actual physical proof of the ideas they developed on the topic. The catalogue authored by Olearius clearly suggests that the curator (and, possibly, his employer) used the specific space in the castle allocated to the Kunstkammer not merely to present precious collectables and single extraordinary things, but also to express and convey concepts and ideas at deeper epistemic levels by means of visual forms and strategies, in particular through comparison. As already seen, in the first instance, an illustration in a book and the brief chapter accompanying it inform us of the existence of a specific category, of a group of objects displayed as “idols” in Gottorp. There is another illustration that seems to confirm, if not the actual reality of such an ensemble, then certainly the performative dimension and power attributed to it by contemporaries. This illustration is the frontispiece to a second, posthumous edition of Olearius’s catalogue (Schleswig, 1674), realized by Hamburg engraver Hieronymus van Hensbergen. Offering a perspective view into the castle’s rooms, the visual quotation of the ensemble of “idolatrous” figures in plate iv gives this distinct category of objects, and the group of objects in the Kunstkammer, additional emphasis within the volume (Fig. 2). Of course, the organization of a collection on paper, in a book, is not necessarily the same as the physical arrangement and display of the single pieces and groups of objects in an actual space. And any pictorial representation of an artefact or group thereof in a drawing or engraving obviously results in a mediatic discontinuity. Various styles may be chosen for the representation, and different visual contexts may lead to different readings and have different intentions. Likewise, different classificatory intentions may exist alongside each other, adding to the complexity of the historical reconstruction and the meaning-making processes24. Fortunately, we have additional evidence as to the actual order adopted in the two chambers of the castle, and the conception and reception by visitors of Olearius’s staging of the “strange idols”. For in23 For an insightful critical discussion of this Eurocentric notion, cf. A. Bensa, La Fin de l’exotisme. Essais d’anthropologie critique, Anacharsis, Toulouse 2006. Cf. also M. Marrache-Gouraud, Naissances de l’exotisme, ou comment inventer la place des lointains, in M. Marrache-Gouraud et al. (eds.), La licorne et le bézard: Une histoire des cabinets de curiosités, Gourcuff-Gradenigo, Paris 2013, pp. 159-168. 24 M. Zytaruk, Cabinets of curiosities and the organization of knowledge, in «University of Toronto Quarterly» 80, 1 (2011), pp. 1-23; S. Bann, Shrines, curiosities, and the rhetoric of display, in Lynne Cooke - P. Wollen (eds.), Visual Display: Culture Beyond Appearances, The New Press, New York 1995; A. MacGregor, Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century, Yale University Press, New Haven 2007. 642 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa stance, upon his arrival in Gottorp at the end of 1662, Nils Rubenius, son of a Swedish minister and tutor of a young aristocrat travelling through Europe, noted in his journal: «On the morning of 8 December I went to Adam Olearius […] In the afternoon, at 1, we were able to visit the Duke’s library and Kunstkammer. […] Behind that room there was another, where the rarities were located […]. [There was] a West Indian idol of the kind they keep privately in their houses. And many false gods of other heathens»25. Clearly, a group of objects was displayed in the second chamber and described as “idols”, and it caught the visitors’ attention. The most impressive, as we read, was a particular piece, a “West Indian idol”. Nevertheless, this brief mention does not, at this stage, allow for any further identification of the artefact seen by Rubenius and his tutee26. However, leaping some fifty years forward, we find a record that bears some correspondence to Rubenius’s brief description – a detailed inventory of the Gottorp Kunstkammer compiled in 1710 by Johann Pechlin, who had succeeded his father, Johann Nikolaus Pechlin, as curator of the ducal holdings. The fifth heading, “Antiquitaeten”, features a group of sixteen objects, naming the two Egyptian figurines represented in plate iv of Olearius’s catalogue alongside Roman funerary lamps, urns, and a Priapus. Ethnographica are also listed alongside these Antiquitates sacrae: the runic calendars, Russian icons, and the Buddha statue pictorially illustrated in Olearius’s volume, as well as “the American idol Vitzli-Putzli cut out of paper [sic!]”27. In the case of Pechlin’s inventory – despite his surprising misidentification of the material out of which the figure is made – there is no doubt as to which artefact in the Gottorp Kunstkammer the brief description refers: a figure from Indonesian shadow puppet theatre, wayang kulit, cut, chiselled, and painted in leather, and more specifically a representation of the mythological Javanese prince Panji (Fig. 3). The prince’s adventurous quest to find his beloved princess and reunite with her became extremely popular during the Majapahit Empire. The many tales about Panji constitute an important part of wayang performances. The puppet shows the refined, open work of a court artefact in a plain, delicate figurative style. The complexion, long neck, narrow, almond-shaped eyes, long, straight, pointed nose, thin, half-open lips, and the slender stature, elongated limbs, legs held close together and fine hands, are all elements of the characteristic iconography of a noble, sensitive personality. As a man of aristocratic descent, the bare-chested prince Panji 25 Rubenius’s manuscripts are preserved in the Royal Library in Stockholm. Cf. H. Spielmann (ed.), Gottorf. Im Glanz des Barock, cit., pp. 16-19. 26 Ibi, p. 18. In a commemorative publication of 1666, a nobleman of Balkan origin, Alexander Julius Torquatus a Frangipani, also mentions idols on display in the Kunstkammer: «Barbarorum, diversi & horribiles vultus, habitus, colores, ora, arma, redimicula, atque variae idolorum species». Ibi, p. 15. 27 «Der Americanische Abgott Vitzli-Putzli in Papier geschnitten». Cf. B. Dam-Mikkelsen - T. Lundbaek (eds.), Ethnographic Objects, cit., p. 140; H. Spielmann (ed.), Gottorf. Im Glanz des Barock, cit., p. 61. Struggling with Strange Idols 643 wears a dodot, a court dress, draped in the way known as bokongan raton, worn only by royals. Additionally, he wears a red undergarment or sash bearing batik-like patterns, with the edges billowing out behind him. The distinctive rounded, helmet-like cap that the figure is wearing is what enables its clear identification as the hero of Javanese culture28. Of course, the labelling of a wayang kulit figure as “West Indian” (i.e., American) and “Vitzli-Putzli” – a malapropism of the name of the Aztec deity Huitzilopochtli – is erroneous on many counts. We could simply dismiss it as a mistake – the author of the inventory of 1710 did not know any better. However, I am convinced that there is more to be learnt about past knowledge cultures and discourses on historical objects, in particular from such an incorrect attribution. A systematic identification effort can be gleaned, a comparative method based on a morphological approach, all of which against the background of a fundamental condemnation of idolatry and a rich verbal and visual cultural imaginary on the subject. Thus, the reconstruction of the thought processes and scholarly practices involved offers some valuable insights into early modern discourse on religion and the role attributed to material objects as well as the pictorial representations that circulated on paper therein. 4. The epitome of idolatry Huitzilopochtli was the God of War and patron of the warrior class. Worshipped at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan, he was one of the most celebrated Aztec deities at the time of the conquest of Mexico. During the sixteenth century, pictorial codices of the native tradition reached Europe, as did religious treatises and travel reports by the conquerors, all containing different images as well as descriptions of the god’s appearance and the rituals devoted to him. Illustrations in codices would characteristically show Huitzilopochtli as a figure in profile, with, among his iconographic attributes, a blue face and body paint, a cape of feathers, a shield and spears, a feathered headdress or, a distinctive element exclusive to this god, a hummingbird helmet29. Printed illustrations reproducing images from these codices circulated widely in various editions and translations of works such as, for instance, Antonio de Herrera’s Descripcion de las Indias Occidentales (Madrid, 1601). Clearly, this rather ill-famed god, who demanded regular human sacrifices, was of great interest, fascination even, in this period. Concurrently, very different illustrations that were labelled as Huitzilopochtli were also circulating in Europe, for instance in the fourth and the last of the immensely popular and influential Americae volumes by the Frank28 For a general introduction to wayang, cf. J. Scott-Kemball, Javanese Shadow Puppets, BMP, London 1970; E.C. Van Ness - S. Prawirohardjo, Javanese Wayang Kulit: An Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1980; W. Angst, Wayang in Indonesia, Stadler, Konstanz 2007. 29 “Huitzilin” means hummingbird in Nahuatl; the hummingbird was thus a visualization of the principal phonetic component of the god’s name. 644 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa furtian De Bry publishing house (Americae, Pars Quarta and Nona et postrema pars, Frankfurt am Main, 1594 and 1602, respectively), or, even in the later seventeenth century, in Arnoldus Montanus’s De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld (Amsterdam, 1671). These visual representations had nothing to do with autochthonous sources. They were derived from other pictorial traditions and frames of reference and used well-known western stereotypes. The Aztec god could be shown seated, in a frontal pose, as a Roman-style pagan deity comparable to Mars, but with exotic additions such as a feathered headdress. Then again, he could have a devilish, winged body, thick, furry thighs, and goat’s hooves or clawed feet. His head would be monstrous, and he would have a second face on his chest30. Such classical or sensationalistic imagery was quite popular; rather than following any sort of direct observation or description, or any geographical frame of reference, these iconographies were intended to suggest links to the more familiar paganism of antiquity or, alternatively, to offer the public the thrill of a demonic vision. Wherever idolatry figured – in travel accounts, missionary literature, or scholarly treatises – and however it was explained – as a lack of religious development, degeneration from true religion, or the effect of a ruse of Satan – Huitzilopochtli was remarkably present. He appeared in a broad range of pictorial images and his (usually distorted) name came to epitomize, if not personify, idolatry31. It has been suggested that the Gottorp wayang kulit figure may have been labelled as “Vitzli-Putzli” because of the abovementioned frequent confusion in the early modern period of the geographical origins of artefacts generally termed as “Indian” and because of the special fascination with the notorious, man-eating god32. In more recent scholarship, new light has been cast on the existence of a devilish figure by the name of Vitzli-Putzli in the German puppet tradition of the time, as well as the general use of the term Vitzli-Putzli for foreign (“exotic”) deities33. I think that some further considerations about this intriguing categorization of a Javanese shadow play figure can and must be added. To do so, I will examine the role that Olearius and his conception of the Kunstkammer might have played within this process of representation of the idolatrous “Other”, and, by the same token, I will highlight the source 30 This latter iconographic tradition can be traced back to the early 1500s, and namely to the so-called “Deumo” or “idol of Calicut” in the German edition of Ludovico de Varthema’s Itinerario (1515), illustrated by Jörg Breu the Elder. 31 On Vitzli-Putzli, cf. E.H. Boone, Incarnations of the Aztec Supernatural: “The Image of Huitzilopochtli in Mexico and Europe”, in «Transactions of the American Philosophical Society», New Series 79, 2 (1989), pp. 1-107, and particularly pp. 55-83. Cf. also F. Anders, Huitzilopochtli-Vitzliputzli-Fizlipuzli-Fitzebutz. Das Schicksal eines mexikanischen Gottes in Europa, in Focus Behaim Globus, exh. cat., Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg 1992, vol. i, pp. 423-446. 32 I. Wulff, “Fisle Pusle” fra Kunstkammeret, in «Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark» (1973), pp. 111-122. 33 J. Nielsen, Fra Huitzilopochtli til Fisle Pusle. Om en aztekisk guds vej til Danmark, in «Fortid og Nutid. Tidsskrift for kulturhistorie og lokalhistorie» 1 (2009), pp. 23-35, here p. 28; cf. also E.H. Boone, Incarnations of the Aztec supernatural, cit. Struggling with Strange Idols 645 value of various written, visual, and material documents against the background of an early modern discourse on religious alterity. It is possible that the wayang kulit figure came to Gottorp as part of the previously mentioned holdings of Bernardus Paludanus. The Dutch scholar had been well acquainted with a fellow citizen of Enkhuizen, the famous Asia traveller Jan van Linschoten. In fact, Paludanus helped Linschoten write up the account of his experiences in the East, and clearly many of the traveller’s exotic objects found their way into his collection34. However, Olearius evidently lacked specific information about a significant number of Paludanus’s items. As the briefly sketched case of the Thai Buddha statue exemplifies, he had to do his own research, relying on his personal background, eyewitness information, and learning derived from books. His statement, in the Gottorp catalogue introduction, that he would only illustrate and discuss objects he had been able to identify with certainty, indicates that he was aware of the limits of his knowledge. He had, of course, purchased some pieces displayed in the Kunstkammer himself in Persia and Russia. In other cases, as he reported, he was able to show artefacts to people from the objects’ region of origin – namely the Inuit captives – and interview them. Clearly, though, the scholar’s central method with regard to ethnographica was cultural comparison, and books remained his most important source of information. Olearius’s knowledge and ideas were primarily based on scholarly treatises, collection catalogues, and not least the empirical evidence offered in travel accounts, which the Gottorp curator, himself an experienced traveller and author, collected, studied, and even had published in Schleswig as important documents and sources of information. In fact, in the year 1666, Olearius did not only send his own volume on the Gottorp holdings to press. He was also responsible for the publication of a brief account on Barbados authored by Heinrich von Uchteritz. A mercenary, Uchteritz had been captured after the Battle of Worcester and in 1652, after a few months of detention in England, by order of Cromwell had been sent off to the Caribbean Island with a large number of other political and military opponents. After several months he was released and eventually travelled to Schleswig35. Uchteritz described the flora and fauna, as well as the customs and religion in Barbados. He stated that all the Christians on the island were Calvinists, and that church services were just like in England. He noted that believing that no evil could come from God, the “moores” – probably enslaved Africans – worshipped the devil instead, fearing him as dangerous and devious, and hoping that their devotion would prevent him 34 Cf. H.D. Schepelern, Naturalienkabinett oder Kunstkammer. Der Sammler Bernhard Paludanus und sein Katalogmanuskript in der Königlichen Bibliothek in Kopenhagen, in «Nordelbingen, Beiträge zur Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte» 50 (1981), pp. 157-182 and R. van Gelder, Paradijsvogels in Enkhuizen. De relatie tussen Van Linschoten en Bernardus Paludanus, in R. van Gelder et al. (eds.), Souffrir pour parvenir. De wereld van Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Arcadia, Haarlem 1998, pp. 30-50. 35 A. Gunkel - J.S. Handler (eds.), A German indentured servant in Barbados in 1652: The account of Heinrich von Uchteritz, in «Journal of the Barbardos Museum and Historical Society» 33 (1970), pp. 91-100. 646 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa from harming them36. Olearius provided his readers with extensive additional information on some of the topics raised in the account. His commentary on Uchteritz’s brief description of devil worship was over two pages long. The Gottorp scholar discussed and deplored the fact that, despite “the spreading of the luminous word of God through the Redeemer and the Gospel”, idolatry was still practised in the East and West alike. He quoted several examples of such abominable behaviour, from the Indian subcontinent and Siam to the Americas, where idolatry, as he wrote, was even more virulent, and the devil was worshipped under many names, such as “Gaucas”, “Tezcatlipuca”, “Quetzacleoalt”, and “Vitzli-Putzli”, in the shape of horrid, ugly figures, as could be seen on the title page of Uchteritz’s book37. The small engraving pictures a scene of worship against a landscape; two men bowing in front of “Vitzli-Putzli”, an enthroned bird-like, monstrous figure shown in profile, with a claw raised against the kneeling devotees (Fig. 4). Olearius highlights but does not give a source for this visual representation of idolatry. He may have commissioned it himself, inspired by both Uchteritz’s description, and, as was often the case with early modern publications, an illustration on an analogous topic in an earlier travel account. In fact, in his note, Olearius explicitly included references to Girolamo Benzoni’s Historia del Nuovo Mondo and De Bry’s profusely illustrated Americae volumes. The fourth part of the latter was based on Benzoni’s account and, among others, featured illustrations of the religious ceremonies of the Indians and their idols. One of these idols appears very close to Uchteritz’s cover image38 (Fig. 5). Thus, what becomes clear from two publications for which Olearius was responsible in the year 1666 is an interest in religion, and a particular effort, motivated by his vehement condemnation of all of “idolatry’s” dangerous manifestations, to document and represent it. In fact, the Lutheran scholar’s digression on the worship of the devil still practised in Asia and the Americas set out in Uchteritz’s volume ended with a clear and explicit warning to his readership. We have to praise God, Olearius wrote, that we were not born in such places. All the same, as he emphasized in the sentence that followed, even among Christians there were terrible idolaters devoted to abominable witchery that God could reveal and wipe out39. 5. Tracing images of idolatry in accounts and artefacts Uchteritz’s was not the only travelogue Olearius published in Schleswig. In 1669, the Gottorp scholar edited a volume, Orientalische ReisebeschreiH. Uchteritz, Kurtze Reise-Beschreibung, Holwein, Schleswig 1666, pp. 8-9. Olearius, in H. Uchteritz, Kurtze Reise-Beschreibung, cit., pp. 20-22. 38 It is not uninteresting that later authors, such as the German compiler Erasmus Francisci in his Neu-polirter Geschicht-, Kunst- und Sittenspiegel, Endter, Nuremberg 1670, Book 3, plate xviii, p. 986, chose to illustrate the image of the idol from Uchteritz and the ones from Benzoni/De Bry together in one plate. 39 Olearius, in H. Uchteritz, Kurtze Reise-Beschreibung, cit., p. 22. 36 37 Struggling with Strange Idols 647 bungen, containing the accounts of Jürgen Andersen and Volquard Iversen. Both men had been in Asia for many years as soldiers in the service of the VOC. Olearius decided to have the two travellers’ experiences and observations published because of their informational value (Andersen’s writings were the first direct account on China and central Asia in German, Iversen’s were rich in information on the Moluccas and Gujarat, namely the important seaport of Surat). Again, as the editor of the volume, Olearius tried to verify the contents; he confronted the authors’ statements with other source documents and added extensive comments. Both Andersen and Iversen had spent some time in Batavia, where wayang kulit performances certainly took place. However, it is unlikely that the two German soldiers would have left the VOC quarters, located near the harbour, in the very north of the city. Nor would they have entertained much contact with the locals. So, even if Olearius presumably showed them around the Kunstkammer, they would not have been able to identify the shadow play figure in any way. Andersen’s observations on ceremonies and religion were of a more general nature. Still and not surprisingly, Olearius took particular interest in them. He highlighted this section by adding a long comment to the German traveller’s description of idolatry in India, in which he essentially repeated the examples and the argument he had already formulated for Uchteritz’s account, thereby adding information on the American cult of the devil to the travelogue. On the same page he even placed a reproduction of Uchteritz’s cover image depicting the worship of Vitzli-Putzli (Fig. 6). One specific remark by Olearius, directly below this illustration, is of major interest for my argument. In the Kunstkammer’s holdings, the Gottorp curator now wrote, there was just such a piece from Mexico, taken from a private home and not dissimilar to the one shown in the engraving. Several details of this last piece of information, namely the geographical provenance and private use of these idols, seem to correspond to the entry on “Vitzli-Putzli” in the inventory of 1710 – and to Rubenius’s above-quoted note on his visit to the collection in 1662. Thus, it may very well have referred to the wayang kulit figure Olearius and the Swedish visitor had discussed. Presumably, at that point in time Olearius had already studied De Bry’s volume based on Benzoni and thought he could detect correspondences between the description, the engraving of the American idols, and the Javanese figure. Over time, not least while working on the Uchteritz edition and title page, he may have increasingly convinced himself of the correctness of his assumption; so much so that he decided to explicitly remark on it a few years later in his annotations to the Orientalische Beschreibungen. At this point, it seems worthwhile to further corroborate my hypothesis about Olearius’s approach and method by briefly leaving the Gottorp Kunstkammer and its curator to visit holdings of a very different kind: the private collection of the Lutheran scholar Johann Ernst Gerhard which presumably was open to very few, principally his colleagues and students at the university of Jena. A family acquaintance of Gerhard’s in The Hague, the Lutheran pastor 648 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa Johann Schelhammer had offered him a group of eastern artefacts from Batavia40. We might not even know about the Antiquarium Gerhardinum today if it were not for a volume published in 1667 that offered a panoramic view of world religions, comparing the true (Lutheran) Christian religion to all of the other, false ones41. This dissertation, titled Umbra in luce, was authored by Gerhard’s young colleague Christian Hoffmann, and presented at the university of Jena. Hoffmann’s comparative history of religion, and namely the section dedicated to the worship of the devil, was enriched by several illustrations. Some were copied from Kircher’s Oedipus, which Hoffmann quoted often. One example, remarkably but not surprisingly, is the abovementioned influential image of the “Pagodes Indorum Numen”. Other engravings were very fine and detailed renderings of Gerhard’s exotic objects, including a Javanese shadow play puppet, labelled “Idolum Chinensium Josin dictum” (Fig. 7). This beautiful artefact is presumably lost. Based on its graphic rendering we can assert that, like the Gottorp piece, it represented an aristocratic person. Various iconographic details of Gerhard’s piece point to a character from the Mahabharata; the hairstyle identifies the figure as Yudhisthira, the eldest of the five Pandava brothers and heroes of the popular Indian epic. For his comment on this engraving, Hoffmann chose to quote from the travelogue of Johann Jacob Saar42. In his account of 15 years of service in the East Indies, the Nuremberg soldier described observing Chinese idol worship in Batavia. The idol was called Josin, Saar noted43. The cult image measured roughly 30 cm in height and was modelled in clay. The face was black, with big eyes circled in red. He had the nose of a parrot and horns44. Based on Saar’s description, Hoffmann concluded that the wayang kulit figure in the Antiquarium Gerhardinum was just such a Chinese Josin, albeit a specimen worked in leather45. One might remark that, in comparison to Olearius, Hoffmann at least got the general geographical area right. He had, indeed, received specific details regarding the provenance of the object depicted and accordingly consulted travel accounts from that region, whereas the Gottorp curator had no such information available for his artefact. Leaving aside their different starting 40 The most obvious way that Schelhammer could have obtained his Orientalia was by purchase. A steady inflow of objects were sent or taken home (legally or illegally) by officials of the VOC, who were aware that these things sold well at home. Being well connected to VOC officials obviously helped, but there was also a lively market for these things. Cf. L. Noordegraaf - T. Wijsenbeek-Olthuis, De wereld ontsloten. Aanvoer van rariteiten naar Nederland, in E. Bergvelt - R. Kistemaker (eds.), De wereld binnen handbereik. Nederlandse kunst- en rariteitenverzamelingen, 1585-1735, Waanders, Zwolle 1992, pp. 39-50. 41 On Umbra in Luce cf. A. Ben-Tov, Johann Ernst Gerhard (1621-1668): The Life and Work of a Seventeenth-Century Orientalist, Brill, Leiden - Boston 2021. 42 J.J. Saar, Ost-Indianische Funfzehen-Jährige Kriegs-Dienste, Tauber, Nuremberg 1662. 43 Cf. s.v. “Joss”, in H. Yule - A.C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, cit.: «An idol, corruption of Portuguese “Deos”, God, first taken up in Pidgin language of the Chinese ports from the Portuguese and then adopted from that jargon by Europeans as if they had got hold of a Chinese word». 44 In all likelihood, the description is of a deity from Chinese folk religion, the God of Thunder, Leigong. 45 C. Hoffmann, Umbra in luce, Bauhofer, Jena 1667, s.p., Chapter 2, § xx. Struggling with Strange Idols 649 points, however, clear similarities in the approach of the two scholars are discernible: Hoffmann too worked under the basic assumption that the exotic artefact necessarily had to be an idol, a “devil”. Like Olearius, after this first categorization, he sought to gather additional information about it, such as a local name or some ethnographic details. And like him, he considered the consultation of eyewitness accounts in the form of travel literature an adequate scholarly source for his comparative method. Finally, another observation seems important, one that also relates to the two European scholars’ struggle with an iconography entirely foreign to them. It was arguably the description of the idol’s nose as that of a parrot that most convinced Hoffmann he had found literary evidence that it could be related to the artefact in the Antiquarium Gerhardinum; he interpreted the features of the wayang figure as bird-like. In linking the description and the Vitzli-Putzli illustration with the wayang kulit figure in Gottorp, Olearius seems to have perceived the features of the Javanese cultural hero Panji as similar. Clearly, Olearius had no way of gaining adequate information about Indonesian theatre puppets, even less so about their sophisticated, stylized iconography. Also, we need to bear in mind the obvious limitations and pitfalls of any comparative approach, and, most of all, the influence of expectations on people’s perceptions as well as the prominence of Huitzilopochtli’s position in the early modern scholarly discourse on idolatry. Indeed, it seems plausible that the full-length, profile view of the two figures, their distinctive noses, the angled arms, the raised hand with pointing fingers, and maybe even the effect of the billowing, patterned clothes of the shadow play figure, compared to the hairy thighs of Vitzli-Putzli, would have been perceived as factual correspondences and good enough to convince Olearius of their kinship46. Certainly, having a specimen of this famous – or rather infamous – god in one’s collection of idols would have been thought particularly significant on many counts. And it can reasonably be presumed that due to Olearius’s status as a renowned and experienced scholar, his classification of the artefact in the Gottorp holdings was accepted, passed on, and reiterated by visitors and later curators of the Kunstkammer, to eventually be written down by Pechlin in the inventory of 1710. 6. The epistemic value of pictorial sources and wrong categorizations Adam Olearius died in 1671 without publishing the further volumes on the ducal holdings that he had originally planned. The Kunstkammer and the ensemble of idols he had conceived and openly displayed nevertheless remained an attraction for educational travellers. The Danish physician and naturalist Oliger Jacobaeus, professor of medicine, philosophy, geography, and 46 There seem to have been very few such figures in European collections in the early modern period. Generally, Javanese and Balinese wayang performances were probably not accessible to westerners, nor were such figures part of the typical diplomatic gift exchange or popular export articles, like, for instance, the Javanese dagger, the kris or keris. 650 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa history in Copenhagen, visited Gottorp on 2 June 1674 during his trip through Europe and in his travel journal mentioned seeing a “Fisle Puzzle” there47. Christian V, king of Denmark, appointed Jacobaeus to augment and order the famous cabinet of curiosities in Copenhagen – one of the major competitors of the Gottorp Kunstkammer – begun by his predecessors. In the manuscript inventory of the royal collection in Copenhagen, penned by Jacobaeus and dated 11 December 1689, we find the entry “An East Indian idol of wood named Fisle Pusle” referring to a wayang klitik figure, a wooden shadow theatre puppet from Java48. Presumably the figure reminded Jacobaeus of the one he had seen in the ducal Kunstkammer over a decade earlier and he labelled it accordingly. Why he called it “East Indian” will probably remain unanswered. Maybe he simply failed to remember the Gottorp geographical attribution (he had, indeed, omitted to note anything about it in his diary). Might he have been told that the Copenhagen piece came from the East Indies? Might he simply not have attributed any relevance to what today appears to be a contradictory geographical provenance; after all, the name of the Aztec god was often used as a general label for exotic idols from all corners of the world. One last inventory of the “Kunst- und Naturalien-Cammer des Schlosses Gottorf” was written on site, in 1743, only a few years before all the ducal holdings were transferred to Copenhagen in 1751, following Denmark’s victory in the Northern Wars, to become part of the royal collection. The inventory was extremely detailed and included information on the exact position of every single object. The wayang kulit representation of Panji, described as a “figure cut out of ordinary hide, probably an idol, 12 inches high”, was located “on the northern side, between the black cabinets and to the right past the entrance”49. A marginal note to this entry on the page reads: “It is in the Indian Chamber, next to the tower of Pekin, and it is a Ficli Puzli from the West Indies”50. This article was mainly focused on a single artefact in a renowned northern European collection of the early modern period. The reception, conceptualization, and depiction of the wayang kulit figure mirrors aspects of both the formation and reception of a seventeenth-century Kunstkammer – that is to say, a museum as a cultural practice. The reconstruction I propose is based on circumstantial evidence and is no doubt somewhat speculative. Still, I think that this method can help us understand how early modern scholars and observers proceeded, how they approached their material, gathered and employed their documentation, and communicated their results. More importantly, I hope to have demonstrated the epistemological significance and specificity of both objects and book illustrations in the early modern discourse on religion and idolatry. Regardless of the factual accuracy of the interpretations offered by scholars like Olearius or Hoffmann, artefacts and pictorial representations of actual, or even partially imagined material objects are relQuoted in B. Dam-Mikkelsen - T. Lundbaek (eds.), Ethnographic Objects, cit., p. 140. Ibi, Inv. No. EHa2. Ibidem; H. Spielmann (ed.), Gottorf. Im Glanz des Barock, cit., p. 365. 50 I. Wulff, “Fisle Pusle” fra Kunstkammeret, cit., p. 114. 47 48 49 Struggling with Strange Idols 651 evant historical sources because of their immediate impact and the way they were (ab)used in scholarly tracts on religion and idolatry. Thus, they deserve attention in their own right. Additional avenues of research could be pursued, concerning the relationship between autochthonous source material and its translations into the graphic medium. One aspect in the production and use of images as visual evidence addressed herein is what in previous research I also referred to as “convisualization”, in other words, purposeful pictorial strategies linking single visual representations and thus staging and directing their reception. The scholarly dialogue on religion and idolatry clearly relied on images that formed pictorial genealogies that partly developed a life of their own. And it was full of iconographic references and implications that certainly did not escape the attention of the contemporary readers. Case studies like the one presented here, aiming at reconstructing aspects of such direct and indirect exchanges, add small but nevertheless valuable pieces to a bigger picture, in turn adding depth to the discussion. They also make us reflect on how we all go about constructing and representing our narratives of identity and alterity in an academic context. The contingency of the early modern collections of objects is self-evident. The scholars’ classical and theological training and background largely determined the way they perceived, categorized, and interpreted the artefacts, or the images made after them, for a broader circulation and exchange of information. Let me emphasize once more: paradoxically, the Javanese iconography of a hero, depicted in the complex, highly stylized wayang manner, was perceived to signify the quintessence of (Mexican) paganism and Evil. Within the epistemological approach of the time, objects such as the shadow play figure became illustrative material in a comparative method as well as evidence in a religious discourse. They were invariably categorized as “idols” and employed to corroborate the early modern thesis of forms of paganism still practised in both the East and West Indies, their origins and dissemination, and the lurking danger they represented. To us today, these explanations and reasonings are clear misinterpretations or worse. One thing, however, they were not: arbitrary. This is precisely what makes them such a multi-faceted and fascinating field of research. In fact, a small post scriptum about the wayang kulit figure’s further reception might offer a thought-provoking conclusion to these considerations: in 1775 a new inventory was compiled of the now royal Danish collections, in which the wayang kulit figure was catalogued in the following way: “An idolatrous image out of hide of odd, yet human shape, with mobile arms, probably an African fetish or idol”51. The term “fetish” had been introduced only 15 years earlier by French philosophe Charles de Brosses to denote the material object of primitive worship in his anonymously and clandestinely published treatise on the universal origins of worship, Du culte des dieux fétiches ou Parallèle de l’ancienne 51 B. Dam-Mikkelsen - T. Lundbaek (eds.), Ethnographic Objects, cit., p. 140. 652 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa Religion de l’Egypte avec la Religion actuelle de Nigritie (Geneva, 1760). Though controversial and widely attacked, De Brosses’ work of comparative religion and his method were very influential, and the term “fetish” was immediately picked up in debates on the history of religion, and beyond, never to leave them again for centuries to come, right up to the present day52. It is indeed remarkable to see how fast a new terminological but also geographical identity was adopted for the Gottorp wayang kulit figure. Manifestly, it remained an “idol” and a particularly intriguing object, mirroring and yet resisting the many theories and methods of judgmental distinction projected onto it. In the same way as very many ethnographic pieces in private and public collections, the qualification and presentation of this artefact through time had long-lasting implications for its perception and interpretation. Conversely, the presence of ethnographic objects and their visual and verbal interpretations circulating in printed media in Europe had long-lasting implications for the historiography of a discourse on religion. Fig. 1: Plate iv, engraving in Adam Olearius, Gottorffische Kunst-Kammer, Schleswig 1666 © Courtesy Zentralbibliothek Zürich. 52 W. Pietz, The problem of the Fetish i, in «Res» 9 (1985), pp. 5-17; Id., The problem of the Fetish ii, in «Res» 13 (1987), pp. 23-45; Id., The problem of the Fetish iii, in «Res» 16 (1988), pp. 105-123; D. Murray, Object lessons: Fetishism and the hierarchies of race and religion, in K. Mills A. Grafton (eds.), Conversion: Old Worlds and New, University of Rochester Press, Rochester 2003, pp. 199-217; A. Freeman, Charles de Brosses and the French Enlightenment origins of religious fetishism, in «Intellectual History Review» 24, 2 (2014), pp. 203-214; D. Barbu, Idolatry and the History of Religions, cit.; R.C. Morris - D.H. Leonard, Charles de Brosses and the Afterlives of an Idea, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2017. Struggling with Strange Idols 653 Fig. 2: Frontispiece, engraving in Adam Olearius, Gottorffische Kunst-Kammer, Schleswig 1674 © Courtesy Zentralbibliothek Zürich. Fig. 3: Wayang kulit figure of Prince Panji, National Museum Copenhagen, Inv. No. Ha. 1 © Courtesy National Museum Copenhagen. 654 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa Fig. 4: Title page engraving in Heinrich Uchteritz, Kurtze Reise-Beschreibung, Schleswig 1666 © Courtesy John Carter Brown Library, Providence, RI. Fig. 5: Religious ceremonies and idols of the Indians, engraving in Theodor De Bry, Americae, Pars quarta, Frankfurt am Main 1594 © Courtesy Zentralbibliothek Zürich. Struggling with Strange Idols 655 Fig. 6: Detail of page 58, engraving in Adam Olearius, Orientalische Reysebeschreibungen, Schleswig 1669 © Courtesy Staatliche Bibliothek Regensburg. Fig. 7: A wayang kulit figure representing Yudhisthira, engraving in Christian Hoffmann, Umbra in luce, Jena 1667 © Courtesy Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze. 656 Paola von Wyss-Giacosa ABSTRACT One of the key seventeenth-century discourses on idolatry dealt with its origin and development through time as a misguided form of religion. Scholars drew upon a broad range of sources for their investigations. Of great importance were artefacts brought to Europe from Asia and the Americas by travellers and missionaries. Idées reçues and more recent theories on the progress and diffusion of idolatry were measured against what were considered to be real “idols” and thus material evidence for the concepts explored in the scholars’ comparative studies. By focussing on the – wrong – classification of one artefact in the Gottorp Kunstkammer through time, the article presents aspects of this historical discourse on “idolatry” and its long lasting implications for ethnographic objects’ perception and interpretation. In so doing, it also aims to highlight the epistemological significance of book illustrations and their relevance as source material. Uno dei principali discorsi del xvii secolo sull’idolatria riguardava la sua origine e la sua diffusione come forma errata di religione. Gli studiosi dell’età moderna hanno attinto a un’ampia gamma di fonti per le loro indagini. Grande importanza, nell’ambito di questo dibattito, ricoprivano i manufatti portati in Europa dall’Asia e dalle Americhe da viaggiatori e missionari. Le “idées reçues” e le teorie più recenti sul progresso e la diffusione dell’idolatria venivano messe a confronto con gli “idoli” reali, prove materiali al centro delle indagini negli studi comparativi dell’epoca. A partire dalla classificazione – errata – di un particolare manufatto nella Gottorp Kunstkammer, questo contributo presenta alcuni aspetti di questo discorso storico sull’“idolatria”, evidenziando le implicazioni che esso ebbe, sulla lunga durata, per la percezione e interpretazione di oggetti etnografici e tenendo conto anche della riflessione sul significato epistemologico delle illustrazioni e della loro importanza come fonti. KEYWORDS Idolatry, Paganology, Material Culture, Illustration, Gottorp Kunstkammer Idolatria, paganologia, cultura materiale, illustrazioni, Gottorp Kunstkammer