The ''Musaeum Tradescantianum'' was the first

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

open to the public to be established in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Located in

South Lambeth Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, it comprised a collection of

curiosities Curiosity (from Latin '' cūriōsitās'', from ''cūriōsus'' "careful, diligent, curious", akin to ''cura'' "care") is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in humans ...

assembled by John Tradescant the elder and

his son His or HIS may refer to: Computing * Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company * Honeywell Information Systems * Hybrid intelligent system * Microsoft Host Integration Server Education * Hangzhou International School, ...

in a building called The Ark, and a botanical collection in the grounds of the building. Turret House, the family home, was demolished in 1881 and the estate has been redeveloped; the house stood on the site of the present Tradescant Road and Walberswick Street, off South Lambeth Road. Tradescant divided the exhibits into natural objects (''naturalia'') and manmade objects (''artificialia''). The first account of the collection, by

Peter Mundy Peter Mundy ( fl. 1597 – 1667) was a seventeenth-century British factor, merchant trader, traveller and writer. He was the first Briton to record, in his ''Itinerarium Mundi'' ('Itinerary of the World'), tasting '' Chaa'' (tea) in China and trav ...

, is from 1634. After the death of the younger Tradescant and his wife, the collection passed into the hands of the wealthy collector Elias Ashmole, who in 1691 gave it to

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

as the nucleus of the newly founded

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...

. The Tradescant collection is the earliest major English cabinet of curiosities. Other famous collections in Europe preceded it, for example Emperor

Rudolf II Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Kingdom of Croatia (Habsburg), Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–160 ...

's Kunst- und Wunderkammer was well established at

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

by the end of the 16th century. In 2015 the

Garden Museum The Garden Museum (formerly known as the Museum of Garden History) in London is Britain's only museum of the art, history and design of gardens. The museum re-opened in 2017 after an 18-month redevelopment project. The building is largely the ...

received a £3.5 million Heritage Lottery grant to recreate a part of the original Ark with loans from the Ashmolean Museum

References

External links

Review of Jennifer Potter, ''Strange Blooms: The Curious Lives and Adventures of the John Tradescants''Another review of the above book
{{coord, 51.4784, -0.1231, type:landmark_region:GB-LBH, display=title * History of museums 17th-century establishments in England 1662 disestablishments in England Museums disestablished in 1662 History of the London Borough of Lambeth Former private collections in the United Kingdom Defunct museums in London 17th century in London

See also

References

External links