This chapter considers one of the most radical aspects of the matter of mimesis: occasions when materials seem to perform mimetic acts without a human agent. The case study under consideration comes from the writings of the Danish collector, physician and scholar Ole Worm (1588–1654), whose curiosity and analytical skills extended to patterns in natural specimens that displayed what appeared to be non-human artisanship. My approach to Worm is prompted by my previous studies of how materials with naturally-occurring images were interpreted and employed in motifs by early modern artists so as to make visual statements on nature’s capabilities or limitations as an artist. In early modern art history, non-human image-making has been addressed from various perspectives, for instance, interpretations of images as made by Chance or Fortuna, visual manifestations of artistic and creative power, monstrosities, religious portents, and perceptual tricks in the eye of the beholder. A key to understanding the reception of these images lies in belief (or absence of belief) in a sender, such as God, expressing an intention or message.
In his writings, Worm refers several times to the idea of nature’s playfulness in describing naturally-made images as well as elaborate forms and patterns in matters. In an often-cited article on the early modern idea of nature’s ‘jokes’ or ‘sports’, Paula Findlen (1990, 292) quotes Worm’s reference to nature’s playfulness in his discussion of ‘figured stones’: ‘Nature has joked (lusit) uncommonly in all the outward appearances of natural things […]’. Findlen does not analyse this statement further, leaving Worm to feature as a traditionalist, with a worldview relying on an animated nature, capable of play. While studying his other references to nature’s playfulness, however, I wondered whether there was a need for a more varied understanding of his use of this concept. This chapter seeks to clarify his probable reasons for applying the term to specimens. What might a reference to the idea of nature’s capacity to make images have entailed at the time?1
As a naturalist and physician, Worm’s interest in natural phenomena largely involved describing, identifying, and then utilising naturalia. Typically for this period, an interest in objects displaying features produced by nature’s playfulness formed part of Worm’s wider aim of identifying the active force capable of giving form to matter, most likely in order to replicate the process in his laboratory. In some cases, especially within his collection of stones, it seemed to Worm that a petrifying agent or succus lapidescens played a role in the production of these images. The point of departure for this chapter is an analysis of how Worm subcategorised and differentiated types of supposed petrifaction processes, which also embraced the concept of sports of nature, lusus naturae, and was supplemented with comparisons to his descriptions of image-containing specimens in both his correspondence and his famous collection catalogue, Museum Wormianum. Alongside the analysis of Worm’s explanations of the petrifying juice and a discussion of his use of the notion of nature’s play, a number of different objects in his collection are presented in this chapter. This broader class of specimens with image-like features includes, but is not restricted to, fossils in the modern sense. The following sections will introduce the context for interpreting natural specimens at the time, as well as Worm and his collection.
1 Nature as Producer of Signs
An underlying assumption about nature’s playfulness was a broader understanding of nature as a source and producer of signs. Natural specimens, especially plants, were interpreted as bearing visual resemblances to the human body parts that they could be expected to heal.2 The rationale behind such uses of nature derived from the doctrine of signatures, and a general theory of the world as tied together in a network of affinities based on analogies and sympathies. In disclosing nature’s secrets, special attention was paid to monstrous births, exceptional weather conditions, and spontaneously appearing images in nature. These extraordinary natural phenomena seemed to be particularly loaded with significance, and to display intense powers of production. Some cases were interpreted as portents and warnings from God, illustrating a belief in nature as a means of communication.3
Interpretations of nature’s pictorial activity are already to be found in antiquity, most famously in the writings of Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), who was frequently cited, among others by the Italian humanist Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), who, in his book On painting, reproduced the story of a stone cut in two revealing a portrait, and a gemstone with an image of Apollo and the nine muses.4 This story, as well as other similar tales of images appearing in unlikely places, were reproduced in later centuries. In the same vein, variations on a view of nature as a goddess and semi-autonomous agent developed (Economou 1972). Nature imitated the acts of an artist, supposedly making spontaneous images appear for no purpose other than amusement.5
In general, visual, textual, and material sources from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries provide evidence of growing interest in, and artistic use of, nature’s pictorial activity, appreciated for its resemblance to works of art. Most likely, this development was connected to the increasing focus on the optical that was encouraged by the invention of instruments like the microscope, and to a growing emphasis on empirical knowledge in general.6 Over these centuries, natural philosophy, the study of nature, and art theory all developed substantially, eventually also providing theoretical underpinning and physical evidence for the idea of nature’s playfulness, even if it was these developments that, at length, also contributed to dismantling the same view (Daston 1998, 242–248). If the idea of nature as sportive and animated would gradually decline in relevance over the early modern period, in Ole Worm’s day, the use of the doctrine of signatures, the interpretation of portents in nature, and references to nature as playful, were still common in the study of natural phenomena. It was within this equivocal framework that Worm struggled to explain and define those of his natural specimens having distinctive visual and material features that made them appear like images.
In the Nordic European realm, a general endeavour to identify images and emphasise recognisable gestalts or messages in nature was expressed in text and image. One example figures in records of the collection at Gottorf Castle in the duchy of Schleswig, ruled by the Danish king. The so-called Gottorfer codex, produced in the years 1649–1659, is a huge catalogue of the contents of the botanical garden.7 In one of the plates, showing orchids, the flower petals are adjusted in order to enhance the resemblance to naked men, birds, and insects (fig. 15.1).8 A close-up look at the depicted flowers is required in order to discover the tiny figures, but when detected, they emerge as curious reminders of nature’s abilities and agency as sign operator (figs. 15.2a, 15.2b). Furthermore, in the Nordic written sources, there are also reports of extraordinary natural phenomena that were interpreted as portents. For instance, Worm reproduces a story of blue dirt falling from the sky in Scania and staining collars, interpreted as a sign of God’s resentment at the luxurious habit of wearing decorative clothing among Worm’s contemporaries.9 Worm taps into the tradition of interpreting unusual natural incidents as a means of communicating a message, in this case about moral habits, but – as will be shown – also about potential medical uses, or offering clues for understanding and imitating natural processes. As will be discussed later in relation to the expression ‘nature’s play’, Worm’s commitment to a kind of inventive freedom of nature and nature’s ability to communicate messages is, however, less clear.
Johannes Simon Holtzbecker, Orchids, in Gottorfer Codex (1649–1659), vol. I, plate 99, gouache on parchment, 50.5 cm × 38.5 cm
SMK – The National Gallery of Denmark Photo: SMK Foto
Johannes Simon Holtzbecker, Orchids, in Gottorfer Codex (1649–1659), vol. I, plate 99 (detail), gouache on parchment, 50.5 cm × 38.5 cm
SMK – The National Gallery of Denmark Photo: SMK Foto
Johannes Simon Holtzbecker, Orchids, in Gottorfer Codex (1649–1659), vol. I, plate 99 (detail), gouache on parchment, 50.5 cm × 38.5 cm
SMK – The National Gallery of Denmark Photo: SMK Foto
2 Ole Worm (1588–1654)
Ole Worm, a merchant’s son, was born in the Danish city of Aarhus. As a young man, he undertook a Grand Tour in Europe, becoming acquainted with influential scholars and collectors in different countries. Worm established an extensive international network, and in Copenhagen, he gained importance through his three marriages to women from the most important families at the University of Copenhagen. During his lifetime, Worm held several important positions at the university, and played a significant role in supporting young scholars. Furthermore, he was a significant runologist and antiquarian of his time. Both his great project of recording the remains of ancient Nordic culture, and his substantial publications on the subject, were renowned in learned European society.10 He was well acquainted with the royal family, especially King Frederik III (1609–1670), the first major royal collector in Denmark, who visited Worm’s collection, and received his advice both as a physician and as an antiquarian (Schepelern 1971, 15).
Worm obtained a wide variety of objects from his huge network in Denmark and other countries: ethnographic artefacts and antiquities, as well as natural specimens, which became the principal focus of his collection, with paintings, drawings and sculptures playing a lesser role. Worm established his collection in his own home, and used it for teaching activities, as well as for display, attracting local and foreign visitors and earning fame in Europe (Tarp 2018). He spent his final years writing his collection catalogue, Museum Wormianum, a work well known in histories of collecting, which was printed posthumously in 1655.11
In the historiography, Worm has been given a low priority compared to contemporary scholars deemed to belong to the Danish ‘Golden Age’ of science, such as the astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), the anatomist and geologist Niels Stensen (Steno) (1638–1686) – considered as one of the founders of geology – and the astronomer Ole Rømer (1644–1710), famous for his determination of the speed of light.12 Nevertheless, several studies, primarily in Danish, focus on Worm as a collector, physician, and antiquarian, in addition to the debate over Worm’s position on the reception of Paracelsianism and Rosicrucianism in Denmark.13 The philologist Henrik Ditlev Schepelern has translated Worm’s correspondence from Latin into Danish, and has written a dissertation on Worm and the collection catalogue Museum Wormianum, which remains untranslated except for the preface.14 Even though the ethnologist Camilla Mordhorst has studied the collection catalogue and its famous frontispiece from the perspective of museology and history of ideas, in-depth and detailed analyses of the catalogue text as such, and its later reception and impact on the collection catalogue genre, remain to be done.15 As an example of the curious early European museum, the frontispiece is often reproduced in secondary scholarship and popular culture today, but considerably less scholarly attention has been devoted to Worm’s reception of specific ideas of natural phenomenon, such as the concept of a petrifying agent in nature.
3 The Catalogue Museum Wormianum
The collection catalogue presents Worm’s collectibles conventionally, in four main sections probably inspired by foreign collectors and their catalogues: the kingdoms of minerals, plants, animals, and finally artificial things, ordered according to material.16 The largest section concerns the minerals, and this group of specimens was also the greatest in number (Mordhorst 2009, 43). Many of the individual specimens are meticulously described, some at length, for instance the well-known horse jaw embedded in a tree trunk, an object that still exists today.17 In general, Worm records the properties of his specimens, such as shape, colour, fragrance, and known medical effects. Besides describing these properties, he also adds the results of observations and tests conducted in order to clarify the origin, ontology, and probable medical uses of his materials. Occasionally, he includes information on the general category to which the object belongs, as well as information concerning its provenance and donor. As was customary, Worm intertwined these observations with references to knowledge obtained through the international learned circles to which he belonged. For instance, on the topic of petrified shark teeth (to which I shall return in what follows), he combined his own investigations of samples with information from his protégé and successor at the university, Thomas Bartholin (1616–1680), and from the Italian naturalist Fabio Colonna (1567–1650).
As expressed in the preface to Museum Wormianum, in his studies of nature, Worm placed value on establishing knowledge primarily through first-hand encounters with specimens. This attitude not only aligned him with a general move towards empirical studies at the time, but also reflected the way in which Worm generally concentrated on describing individual natural specimens, adding, discussing, and adjusting information in each case, representing – as he claimed in the preface – only specimens he owned. In this way, his catalogue is dominated by a wide range of different natural specimens, but which do not represent a rethinking of categories within the four kingdoms as such.
At his death, Worm’s collection was integrated into that of King Frederik III. Parts of the descriptions in Museum Wormianum accordingly reappear in later royal inventories, for instance in two printed catalogues, both titled Museum regium.18 Over the centuries, several other collections were added to the royal collection, including the collection at Gottorf Castle mentioned in Worm’s writings.19 Only a few of Worm’s many exhibits, however, are known today; the main part of the collection was lost to fires, gradual disappearance, or sale at auction during a reorganisation of the royal collection that took place in the decades around 1800 (Mordhorst 2009).
4 Matters of Petrifaction: Succus lapidescens
In the history of geology, the discussion and interpretation of fossils in the early modern period is a well-studied subject. The early modern use of the term fossils was attributed to any distinctive object or material ‘dug up’.20 Some of the central questions raised by scholars in relation to stones with innate delineations showing, for instance, a fish, addressed their inorganic or organic origin, the appearance of species not known in living nature, and their tendency to appear, mysteriously, in places far from the sea. Fragments of extinct animals were especially difficult to interpret, due to the lack of a living counterpart to explain them (Rudwick 1985). The subgroup of stones addressed in this chapter was named ‘figured stones’, stones with pictorial features, some of which would be recognised as fossils today. Early modern ideas of petrifaction applied to a wider range of objects than fossils in the modern sense.21 Worm’s statements on petrifaction were not original, nor did he contribute any new positions to the debate. However, as I will show, he approached the subject of petrifaction from different angles, bringing available theories as well as observation of specimens to bear in explaining their formation.
One widely accepted model of petrifaction rested on the claim that a petrifying juice permeated matter, transforming its nature. This juice, the succus lapidescens, and its underlying principle, spiritus lapidificans, caused matter to coagulate and transform into stone by penetrating openings in the body of the specimen. Georg Agricola (1494–1555) promoted the idea of succus lapidescens in 1546, and it had a great impact throughout Europe (Agricola 1546, 51–57). This juice appears to be related to a general idea on the earth’s formative powers, vis plastica, supposedly originating with Aristotle (384–322 BC).22 Describing an unknown plastic force capable of conferring form upon matter, the concept was part of a larger debate on natural phenomena from Avicenna (c.980–1037) to Athanasius Kircher (c.1601–1680) and his famous illustrations and interpretations of images in stones.23 In the Museum Wormianum, the chapter on ‘figured stones’ included different kinds of stones in which an image was visible. Here Worm refers directly to Agricola on the matters of succus lapidescens, briefly setting out the latter’s argument that the juice is inherent in the earth and capable of transforming natural bodies.24 Besides the foundational works of Albertus Magnus (1260–1262) and Conrad Gessner (1516–1565), another of Worm’s primary sources on the topic of stones and the kingdom of minerals was the lapidary written by the Flemish physician Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt (1550–1632), whom Worm cites, for instance, in relation to the genesis of images in copper schist.25 The idea of the petrifying juice had been adopted and explained by the Danish doctor and theologian Caspar Bartholin (1585–1629) in his book Systema physicum from 1628, which was widely distributed in Denmark.26 Bartholin was an authority in the Danish academic environment, and furthermore a relative of Ole Worm.
In most cases, when Worm referred to the petrifying juice in his letters and Museum Wormianum, he does not explicate the process as such any further.27 However, in 1646 the director of the Dutch West India Company, Johannes de Laet (c.1581–1649), wrote to Worm that he was about to complete a book on ‘Gemmis & Lapidibus’, in which he planned to include illustrations of petrified mussels he had received from friends in England and France. For this reason, he asked Worm for his view of how the processes of petrifaction occurred, and fortunately, Worm’s response survives.28
5 Explaining Petrified Things: ‘I Believe their Genesis to be Different’29
Following a paragraph on a stone closely resembling a honeycomb in appearance, Worm responded to de Laet that he considered there to be three different kinds of petrifaction processes. The first of these seemed to be a sort of natural moulding or imprinting process, where the stone ‘takes the shape of a living creature or another part of a natural or artificial thing’.30 Later in the letter, he then elaborates on this concept, suggesting that these stones which ‘emulate other things’ might be affected by their place of origin.31 Here, Worm argues, a ‘petrifying juice’ causes stones to take on a shape determined by whatever had previously been lying there, for instance ‘a foot, a head or the like’.32 In this way, the petrifying juice was supposed to contribute in transferring an imprint or shape of a thing to the stone via a process of petrifaction. It is unclear what form such imitation might have taken, and whether it worked in two or three dimensions. However, it is instructive to compare Worm’s first type of petrifaction to a plate from the Lapides or stones included in Basilius Besler’s (1561–1629) catalogue of 1616. Here the different stones may illustrate emulations caused by the juice (fig. 15.3).33 None of the figurations the stones bear appears to be carved or painted. Nor do the descriptions indicate that any craft was involved in their making. They all seem to be the result of petrifaction, which served to embed the figuration in the stone. However, a few differences do appear. One of the specimens shown on the plate is a stone with a hand imprint, and the caption states: ‘ash-coloured stone in which a figure like a hand is imprinted’.34 Compared to the other stones on the plate, the ‘hand’ stone is unlike the other samples because it appears as an imprint, the concave shape of a hand carved into the material. The ‘marble stone’, to the upper left of the image, placed together with the spider, appears as a two-dimensional image, while the different samples with ‘snakes’ appear as three-dimensional likenesses – figurines rather than ‘imprints’ like the hand (fig. 15.3).35 The differences illustrate variations that may all be subordinated within Worm’s first, relatively flexible, category of petrifaction. From this point of view, the hand imprint may be interpreted as an example of how the petrifying juice has modified the stone and fixated the trace of a handprint – or whatever else had previously been lying on the stone. However, the same process might also account for the image of the spider. Even though the spider is reproduced in a different manner from the hand, the depiction of it might be interpreted as a trace of a real spider, fixed by petrifying juice. From this perspective, instances of the first type of petrifaction may be characterised as a kind of indexical image, a sign referencing a physical transaction. It is possible, too, that Worm considered a more radical formative process, wherein the entire stone was reshaped, translating the three-dimensional form of the specimen into stone, as for instance in the ‘snakestones’ that are also depicted on the plate.36 It is difficult to gain any better sense of what kind of instances of the first type of petrifaction Worm might have addressed in defining this category. However, Besler’s plate may portray a range of possible stones with images that Worm might have had in mind.
Basilius Besler (author), Peter Isselburg (draughtsman), unknown (engraver), Lapides: Petrifaction in Fasciculus rariorum et aspectu dignorum varii generis (Nurnberg 1616), engraving, 157 × 195 mm, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
Photo: Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
In overall terms, Worm’s first type of petrifaction is characterised by the fact that the stone does not change substance; rather, a natural process occurs which alters its form. The succus lapidescens confers a new shape or pattern upon the stone, mediated by some kind of interaction between the stone itself and another object. The second category of petrifaction is an actual process of transformation. As in the mussels ‘that have turned into stone’ depicted on Besler’s plate, Worm describes this second category of transformation as consisting of cases where the stone was ‘a plant, an artificial thing or an animal but then transformed into a stone’.37 During the petrifaction process, he suggests, ‘a salty, petrifying and delicate spirit enters the openings of the body […]’. When this spirit unites with the inherent moisture in the object, it causes a coagulation and ‘transmutes it into stone’.38 Furthermore, Worm adds, the ‘nature of the spirit’ has an impact on the quality of the stone, making it ‘harder, softer or more brittle’.39 In this way, the object retained its form, but its substance was thought to be altered by the petrification, which gave it stone-like properties. The most radical of Worm’s three definitions of petrifaction, this is also the most mysterious. In another letter to which I will return below, Worm applies this concept of petrifaction to the glossopetrae, or petrified shark teeth, a category of collected objects much debated at the time.
The third and final kind of petrified object Worm describes also retains its initial shape in the process of petrifaction. To sum up this category, he argues that the object’s petrified state is the result of contact with a liquid containing cream of tartar, which eventually encrusts it.40 Consequently, the form of the object is determined by the thing concealed within it. According to Worm (1751, letter 950), this type of petrifaction is superficial. He refers to this process of encrustation in other writings, for instance in a letter to an Icelandic acquaintance in which he defines a stone as a lump of petrified water, and goes on to explain that certain waters from fountains could encrust wool but not actually change it into stone – a process he had observed in Denmark.
All three processes of petrifaction described by Worm may result in objects that look like an image: stones which imitate the forms of other natural and artificial bodies. In other words, these stony materials bore a form which made reference to fish, peas, or the like, but in themselves, they were mere stones, with no, or very few, visible signs of how they received their imitative qualities. However, interpreting Worm’s account, the second and third definitions of petrifaction do not reflect an imitative act, where the stone is molded by an external force. Instead, they are results of a change of substance: either from within, as a process of transformation, or from without, as a process of encrustation. The first kind of petrifaction is more ambiguous, and may illustrate a natural act of copying, in that it involves a transfer from another object to the stone, thus leaving behind a representation. In this respect, Worm’s interpretation of specimens had affinities to contemporary theories of artistic production, including debate over how an image was judged to be a successful imitation. In the context of petrifaction, it is interesting that the artists’ production of images was framed in terms of the duality between life and death at the time. One of the primary qualities aimed at was for dead material to be given an appearance of lifelikeness, and this quality was constrained by the degree of skill and wit of the artist. Reproducing life convincingly was complemented by the view of the process of making images as an act of petrifaction in which a living body was turned into stone, for instance, through references to the myth of Medusa and her petrifying gaze.41 Furthermore, the imitation of life was broadly defined in artistic production at the time, and did not only refer to visual likeness. Pursuing his ambition of imitating the ‘art of the earth’, the potter Bernard Palissy (c.1510–c.1589) emulated natural processes according to his theories about them, and cast whole natural specimens in order to capture life in clay (Shell 2004). In similar terms, the goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1572) describes his casting work using metal as a process of pouring life into the form, imitating life via a process of liquefying and petrifaction (Cole 1999). This aspect of imitating thus entailed copying physical processes like those activities taking place in ‘the womb of the earth’, linking artistic and alchemical practices. In art theory and the growing artistic aspirations of naturalism, other more common aspects of the concept of imitation were also explored, for instance by expressing visual or textual relations to antiquity or God’s grand work, nature. Exercised in rhetorical theory, imitation was part of an intertextual practice, and this volume on the matter of mimesis testifies to further modes of imitation, including positive and negative valency of the acts. Following this train of thought, one might add that objects with naturally-made images or letters were interpreted in a variety of ways, as entertainment, ill omens, or as an expression of God’s support for rulers; thus, their religious significance varied very widely.
Even though the sources for Worm’s ideas on imitation and his use of ‘imitatio’ and related terms, like ‘efficio’, ‘refero’, and ‘aemulatio’, still need closer examination, the examples above show that in his study of nature, Worm worked within this realm of speculation about how nature or the human maker transferred the image to matter.42 As has been shown, he was implicitly working with different concepts of imitation, and identifying several probable transformative interactions between matter and form.
In a letter of 1647, Johannes de Laet responded to Worm’s letter on the three types of petrifaction, merely stating without further explanation that he agreed with Worm on the subject (Worm 1751, letter 793). This statement confirms that Worm’s interpretation of petrifaction already conformed to well-established knowledge in the field, rather than proposing a break with such views. However, more work remains to be done to clarify how Worm interwove his sources of information. In what follows, I will offer further examples of how Worm applied his views of petrifaction to the interpretation of stones resembling other things.
6 Sharks’ Teeth, Bread, and Honeycomb. Petrifying Juice in Action
Petrified sharks’ teeth were a popular collectible and subject of study. One of Worm’s letters was addressed to his friend Henrik Fuiren (1614–1659), who had requested an explanation of this topic. Here Worm expresses agreement with Fabio Colonna concerning the claim that the so-called tongue stones originate from shark teeth. He then modifies his expression of support, adding that he had only heard Colonna’s claim, but did not know the supporting argument or its foundation. Subsequently, Worm refers to a sample of earth from Malta that he had received, containing ‘this kind of teeth and similar things’, which ‘supports Colonna, and clearly teaches us that in some places there is a petrifying juice, or rather an exhalation, capable of entering bones and transforming their nature’.43
Worm goes on to explain his reasons for doubting that all stones that resembled them were actually petrified sharks’ teeth. Firstly, he presents the common objection to any connection between actual teeth and their petrified counterpart: the teeth were often found at places far from the sea, where maritime animals could not exist, although without confronting the commonly advanced argument that the Great Flood was responsible for the dispersal of remains from the sea as far as high, remote places on land. He adds that he observes fundamental differences between actual sharks’ teeth and their supposed petrified counterpart, explaining and exemplifying differences in size, shape, and colour. The size of a tongue stone which Worm had inspected made him doubt that these objects were indeed sharks’ teeth. Based on the number of teeth in the preserved shark specimen in his collection, Worm estimates that a shark that could have contained some two hundred teeth of this size would be too large to exist. In consequence of this argument, he then suggests different causal processes for the tongue stones and petrified teeth. One kind of stones with the shape of sharks’ teeth is created by ‘mire’ that contained the petrifying powers, and the other one is created by the ‘wit’ or ‘play’ of nature, ludentem naturam, and has nothing to do with a real shark.44
This division between the object produced by a petrifying mire and the products of nature’s imaginative play is central to Worm’s investigation. Both kinds of petrified teeth, in his view, originate in nature, but one is an actual tooth with a transformed substance, and the other one is a kind of imitation of a tooth, made by nature. In both cases, the petrifying juice plays a central role, because, as Worm writes in the letter, nature ‘makes use of the petrifying juice in her sportive actions’.45 In other words, in Worm’s reception of it, the juice is both a general natural power, and a tool used in specific cases where nature acts as an artist. In this way, Worm’s explanation of the petrifying juice appears as aligned to the concurrent idea of vis plastica mentioned above. One of the interesting things is that Worm attempted to differentiate real transformed sharks’ teeth from replicas. Rephrased, he considered the result of sports of nature to be a kind of fake or representation, just as one might judge a model crafted by a human being, since no real sharks’ teeth had been involved in the process, regardless of whether the process was considered natural or artificial.
Ending his section on petrified sharks’ teeth, Worm lists figured stones held in his museum. The list is interesting in this context, because it exemplifies the scope and variety of stony materials that an investigation of image-making powers could entail at this time. The list included ‘a flint stone that looks like a human torso, another one that exactly resembles a left foot, there is one representing a bird, human bones, osteocolla, a horn and a petrified unicorn, [and] drops of Carlsbad water that look like peas’.46 Considering Worm’s differentiation of tooth-like stones in the first part of the letter, these samples were most likely understood as outcomes of nature’s playfulness. They bore naturally created images, whose genesis was not revealed by either material or form. In addition, Museum Wormianum contains other references to similar ‘petrified’ objects, for instance stones in the shape of a Norwegian hat, a nutmeg, and the heart of an ox.47 In Museum Wormianum, Worm’s descriptions also addressed petrified bread, as well as the honeycomb stone mentioned above.48 He inserted his account of his pieces of petrified bread into the section of the catalogue describing figured stones, right after the description of a stone which naturally imitated both the male and female genitalia.
The petrified bread represented a nexus of meanings at the time. Besides the specimen’s curious resemblance to specific types of bread, and the mysterious transformation of matter involved, the petrifaction of bread was connected to a folklore narrative with a moral message dating back to at least the sixteenth century in Denmark.49 Stories described bread turning to stone in punishment for sinful behaviours like miserliness or vanity, and sometimes petrified bread was exhibited in churches as a warning (Worm 1655, 84). With the king’s support and the assistance of the local clergy, Worm was mobilising local communities to record and gather Nordic antiquities in Denmark, and in all, he received many different kinds of objects. There is very little evidence as to Worm’s religious behaviour in general, and most likely, Worm did not promote his petrified bread specimen in order to moralise or intervene in any kind of religious practice (Fink-Jensen 2004). Probably, his intention was rather to gather information and share knowledge with his target audience (potentially university students, colleagues, visitors to his collection, and the readers of his catalogue and letters), who might be interested in the strange occurrence of petrified bread. In the final part of Worm’s paragraph, the determining question seems to be whether the bread-like stone was an actual loaf of bread converted into stone, or rather a product of lusus naturae.50 The honeycomb made of stone is also an interesting example, because Worm describes it in detail, exhibiting fascination with its qualities as an imitation. He writes: ‘All in all: at first sight, you would judge that it was a honeycomb made of bright, untouched beeswax, mounted on a base of stone, despite the fact that the entire piece is as hard as flint’.51 This description, as well as many others, foregrounded the pleasure of experiencing the natural imitation at first hand.52
7 Extracting Petrifying Powers
A desire to unveil causes and explain physical processes in nature is evident in Worm’s letter to the Darmstadt physician Johann Georg Horst (1616–1685). It is interesting that Worm expresses a wish to locate and extract the operative agent in the petrifaction process.53 The subject of discussion is a stone Horst had sent him which was supposedly shaped like a mussel, generated by petrifying powers. Worm guesses that the stone was influenced by the mire in which it was found, and he wonders ‘whether the dirt on the stone would possess the same powers and properties, if it were cleansed, washed, and cut into pieces?’54 In another letter, this time to the Icelandic clergyman Einar Arnfinsson (c.1608–1688), Worm again mentions petrifying powers supposedly transmissible from one material to another, or eventually to a living being like the human body, where it could stimulate contraction or coagulation. Interpreting a stone Arnfinsson had sent him, Worm (1751, letter 977) argues that it was a so-called stalagmite, common in certain places on the Norwegian coast. He explains that it was condensed from sea foam, under the influence of a petrifying power, and concludes by predicting that the petrifying powers had been transferred to the stone, making it a potentially useful medicament against dysentery. In this way, Worm approached the subject of petrifaction with utilitarian aims, potentially involving chemical experiments. My question is, then, how this experimental approach sits alongside Worm’s references to nature’s playfulness and its capacity to create images.
In what follows, I will look into how and why Worm used the concept of sports of nature. My intention here is to argue that even though Worm accepted a category of objects ascribed to nature’s playfulness, he also approached the phenomenon more as an undefined natural formative power than as a semi-autonomous agent mirroring the concept of an artist.
8 Praising Sports of Nature?
In an article on lusus naturae, Helge Kragh offers an introduction to the use of the term in the early modern Danish scholarly milieu. Considering Worm, Kragh states (2006, 20): ‘although Worm did not accept uncritically all stories of nature’s marvels, he had no doubt about the general idea of lusis naturae’. I agree that Worm applied the term to selected specimens without reservations, but how did he use the term and what did it signify?
First of all, Worm uses variations of the term lusus naturae in connection with ‘exorbitant forms’ of both plants and animals, for instance, in the section on ‘monstrous eggs’ or wood.55 In these instances, it seems, Worm refers to intensive cases of form-making in nature which did not subscribe to the usual generative system, and it appears that he is referring to a particularly striking quality in characteristics such as colouring, complex patterns, or unusual shapes.56 More specifically, it seems that Worm uses the reference to the category of ‘sports of nature’ as a convenient shorthand to describe the ‘look’ of a particular specimen or group of specimens. In the paragraph mentioned above on monstrous eggs as lusus naturae, Worm specifically remarks that it would be too ‘circumstantial’ (operosum) to describe them all individually.57 Apparently, the term thus functioned as a collective designation, saving the trouble of writing individual descriptions. Similarly, in a section of the catalogue devoted to marble balls, when Worm notes that the results of nature’s playfulness may be observed, he uses the term to designate a complex pattern and coloration, but without detailing the appearance of each individual exemplar.58 In this way, Worm resorts to a conventional description, usable across a wide variety of specimens.
Worm also lauds nature’s wondrous sport in more general terms, for instance, in the introduction to the chapter on stones, ‘in which nature’s playfulness can be admired’, as well as in he sentence mentioned above, in which he claimed that nature ‘has joked uncommonly […]’.59 These references to nature’s playfulness may have functioned as embellishment, in line with a tradition of writing on nature’s wondrous abilities, her ingenuity and wealth of vital formative powers as a model the artist should imitate and surpass. In this literature, nature was praised for artful inventions, while the artist was applauded for copying nature convincingly, maybe even improving upon natural creations. The trope of the common ability of nature and artist to create images had visual counterparts, especially in the gardens, grottoes, and motifs of grotesques that prevailed as decoration in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Fabricius Hansen 2018). In this vein, Worm also praises nature’s artfulness in one particular object in his collection, a little globe of Florentine marble (fig. 15.4). In the catalogue, Worm recalls nature’s abilities to imitate by describing the sphere as a natural depiction of ‘the lands of the earth’.60 This example of sports of nature is one case where the product of playful agency also assumes the status of a depiction. Even though this collected object received a longer description and is mentioned twice in the catalogue – both as naturalium and as artificialium – it does not seem to be of any experimental interest; rather, equipped with a pedestal, it appears to have functioned as a showpiece for discussion, perhaps with scholars or nobles visiting his collection.61 The properties of the marble were well known, and did not betray any indications of its genesis, but the depiction of the earth on the globe’s superficies remained a curious phenomenon. In another instance, Worm describes a sample of ‘Islebian fish-stones’ that reproduces the fish in more elaborate detail than any artist could accomplish, and he concludes with the platitude: ‘Virtuous nature hides in her womb many things that no one will ever be able to explain’.62 The paragraph on the honeycomb mentioned above shows how sports of nature stimulated both pleasure in the experience and critical evaluation of the quality of the imitation. Nevertheless, this oft-cited phrase concerning the limits of understanding of natural phenomena can also be interpreted as an expression of both unsatisfied curiosity and a bit of frustration.
Unknown artisan, Sphere of Florentine marble, origin unknown. Florentine marble, diam. 7.4 cm, no. 5.325, Rosenborg Castle
Photo: Lisbet Tarp
These longer-term appraisals of nature’s abilities differ from Worm’s typical practice of breaking things down into subtypes based on observation, for instance the kinds of petrified specimens described above, or else his discussion of whether a perfect or imperfect nature had produced the lines on petrified sea urchins, examined by art historian Robert Felfe.63 However, it is noteworthy that, in his inspections, Worm sought naturalistic explanations other than nature’s playfulness, and narrowed down the number of specimens he was prepared to include in this category.64 In some cases, the fact that such specimens carried unexplained visual features is emphasised by Worm’s use of platitudes concerning nature’s capabilities, perhaps in order to embellish – or even just indicate – the fact that their genesis was unknown, a secret of nature that remained obscure. Paula Findlen has pointed out that ‘lusus was frequently used as an anti-definition – a means of explaining something that otherwise would have been without explanation’, an aspect of the concept further elaborated by Marie-Theres Federhofer.65 From this point of view, references to lusus naturae seem to function, for Worm, as a kind of placeholder for phenomena not yet subjected to a satisfactory explanation. In this way, the objects represented dead ends for scholarly research into nature, or at least that is how they appear in Worm’s investigations. The use of the term as a denominator for elaborate and potentially beautiful appearances in nature, described above, offers a more positive sense of Worm’s understanding of the idea of nature’s playfulness.
Even though Worm personified nature in his writings, for instance in the use of petrifying juice, his references to nature’s playfulness thus seem to be rhetorical, rather than reflecting any deeper commitment to the idea of an animated nature. From a more general point of view, Kragh (2006, 16) has described the reference to lusus naturae as follows: ‘To characterize an object as lusus was not intended as an explanation, but rather as a means of emphasizing nature’s endless plasticity and unrestrained creativity’. This way of defining how the reference to nature’s playfulness could be applied in the early modern period weakens its dependency on the idea of an animated nature. From this perspective, its applicability may have been limited to indicating a broadly defined category of activity in nature, or more specifically, as indicated above, to describing certain operations of the vis plastica.66
In sum, I argue in this chapter that Worm employs the concept of sports of nature in describing his specimens because it was, firstly, a rhetorical device in learned society more generally; secondly, a conventional designation of a type of curious and visual feature found in nature, and thus a shortcut for conveying the appearance of a specimen to readers; and thirdly, because the phrase denoted visual attributes whose causes were still unexplained and were secrets of nature. These three aspects of Worm’s use of the phrase lusus naturae are not mutually exclusive, but elucidate different (and sometimes co-existing) aspects of what it meant for him and his contemporaries.
9 Fertile Matters
If the idea of a petrifying juice did not lead to any breakthrough in explaining the origins of figured stones, or why stones could take on the form of honeycombs or bread, Worm’s study reveals that he tried to identify a natural power operating in the process of giving matter shape. In this sense, his interests are in keeping with today’s drive to find new ways of co-creating with nature in the execution of technical and utilitarian but also artistic processes. As presented in this chapter, pictorial activity discovered in natural matters was in the early modern period held, like the relation between matter and form, to be a key to understanding the workings of nature. Such objects stimulated erudite discussion and experimentation. At the same time, the staged rivalry between nature and artist reflected the growing awareness and establishment of a new identity for artists, one in which the source and validation of artistic quality played a central role. The popularity of incorporating nature’s images in works of art culminated during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, thereafter declining in tandem with concepts like nature’s playfulness. Instead, personified versions of nature – Mother Earth, Gaia, Venus or Diana of Ephesus – came to be much used in illustrations across all media, from jewellery and painting to sculpture and the graphic arts.67 The popularity of female personifications of nature contrasted with the diminishing authority of ideas about an animated earth in the center of the cosmos. Eventually, the naturally-made image came to be conceived of as accidental, rudimentary, and with no embedded intentionality or message.
Recognising gestalts in nature is an entertainment pursued to this day. The ambition to create works of art in which part of the creative process does not involve human hands has recurred on different occasions, for instance in relation to the new art form of photography in the nineteenth century.68 Western notions of an animated nature have been replaced by an idea of nature conceived as passive and mechanical, reserving the pursuit of images, symbols, and omens in nature for the realms of art, fantasy and superstition. Nevertheless, copying nature or even co-creating with nature is a growing field of research in many different disciplines. The agency of matter, and the potential for initiating and utilising natural structures and processes, are still topics of study in art and science today. In the research fields of the humanities, the focus on our entanglement with objects brought about by the material as well as theoretical turns has served to reinvigorate discussion of our relation to, and interaction with, our environment. Supported by technological development, mimetic processes drawing upon natural and human activities may prove to be a gateway for rethinking the making of new materials, thus acknowledging shared agency. For instance, one aim is to produce self-generating building materials that repair damage to their form. Artificially made natural bones are ‘grown’, and programmable camouflage material inspired by the abilities of octopus skin has been made.69 These bio-inspired approaches to production point out new interpretations of nature’s agency, where another kind of intentionality than the one connected to the human subject today maybe needs to be defined.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the research group ‘Images of Nature’ at Hamburg University for comments on a paper related to this article. Thanks to Anna-Marie Roos for references and discussion.
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Endnotes
On the concept of lusus naturae, see also Kragh 2006.
Ohly 1999; Foucault 1970; Lohff 2015, 159.
McCall, Roberts & Fiorenza 2013; Leong & Rankin 2011; Daston & Park 2001; Hsia 2004; Knoppers & Landes 2004.
Cited by Janson 1961, 255, and Felfe 2015, 129. Scholarship on the topic of spontaneous images in nature includes, among many others, Lohff 2015; Felfe 2015; Lohff 2015; Adamowsky, Böhme & Felfe 2010; Blümle 2006; Kemp 1995.
Findlen 1990, 325; Daston & Park 2001, 296, 209–210. Another aspect of lusus naturae was fortuna or chance; see Janson 1961. Worm (1655, 82) concludes the section on figured stones by arguing that they were either made artificially, by chance, or naturally: ‘Vel naturales, vel fortuitæ, vel artificiales’.
Felfe 2015; Lohff 2015; Kemp 1995; Egmond 2017; Freedberg 2002.
Pedersen & Kolind Poulsen 2013; Baumann 2014.
Cuveland 1989. Findlen (1990, 313) cites Gaspar Schott (1608–1660), who responds to the experience of an anthropomorphic orchid by relating the human figure or signature to jokes of nature.
Worm 1655, 17; Garboe 1959, 28–29; Schepelern 1971, 146; Worm 1751, letter 785. For other examples of portents in Worm’s writings, see Schepelern 1971, 186.
Worm 1642–1651; Grambye forthcoming. For a full list of Worm’s publications, see Schepelern 1971, 398–399.
Impey & MacGregor 1985; Bering Liisberg 1897; Whitaker 1996.
Kragh et al. 2008; Shackelford 1999. On Niels Steensen, see the work of Troels Kardel.
Skydsgaard & Teglhus 2006; Tarp 2013; Hovesen 1987; Grell 2007; Shackelford 1999, 2003; Grambye forthcoming. Further bibliographical information on Worm can be found in these publications and in Dansk biografisk leksikon.
Schepelern 1971; Worm 1965–68. The preface is translated into Danish in Schepelern 1971, 213–217. The greater part of the letters have survived in an 18th-century transcription (see Worm 1751).
Mordhorst 2009; Funder 2020.
As models, Schepelern (1971, 212) mentions Ferrante Imperato’s and Francesco Calceolari’s collections. For a short translation of the section on the artificial holdings, see Schepelern 1971, 330–366.
The object is at the National History Museum of Denmark (Mordhorst 2009, 164).
Jacobæus 1696, Laverentzen 1710.
In his will, Worm had mentioned Gottorf Castle as second choice to receive his collection if the King rejected it (Spielmann & Drees 1997).
Rudwick 1985; Rossi 1997; Garboe 1959; Porter 1977.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary (online: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fossil [accessed 7 July, 2021]), fossils denote ‘the shape of a bone, a shell, or a plant or animal that has been preserved in rock for a very long period’. This means that a preserved footprint is also a fossil. In brief, in some types of fossils, the remains have gone through permineralisation, where the tissues have been dissolved and replaced by minerals through the pores. This simplistic definition resembles Worm’s second type of petrifaction.
Gould 2004; Alfonso-Goldfarb & Ferraz 2012; Holländer 2011; Beringer 1963.
Findlen 2004; Holländer 2011. Worm knew writings of Kircher, for instance, his dissertation Magnes, sive de arte magnetica from 1641 (Schepelern 1971, 239).
Worm 1655, 81. See Garboe 1959, 28, on fossils as lapides figurati.
Worm 1655, 38; Garboe 1959, 30; Bycroft 2019; Schepelern 1971, 220.
At the end of the section on the petrifying juice, Bartholin (1628, 377–384) refers to several authors also mentioned by Worm in his correspondence and his museum catalogue (Kragh 2006, 17).
Worm 1655, 48, 51, 81, 89, and 99. Worm explains the petrifying juice on page 36.
Worm 1751, letters 790 and 791.
Worm 1751, letter 791.
Worm 1751, letter 791: ‘Unum, qvod, cum lapis sit naturalis, figuram tamen obtinet aut animalis aut partis alicujus alterius rei naturalis aut artificialis’.
Worm 1751, letter 791: ‘Sed figura res alias æmulantur’.
Worm 1751, letter 791: ‘Si enim succus lapidescens in locum, in qvo antea pes, caput aut simile qvid jacuit, inciderit, condensatus eandem res fert figuram, qvam locus, in qvo res, qvam exprimit, delituit’. Schepelern translates this as ‘if the petrifying juice drips onto the site’ (Worm 1968, 219).
Besler 1616; Felfe 2015, 125.
‘Aschenfarber Stein / in dem ein figur einer hand gedruckt’ (fig. 3) (Besler 1616).
‘Conchæ terrestres in lapides conversæ’ (fig. 3) (Besler 1616).
Here, it is important to note that Worm examined and interpreted a ‘snakestone’ and did not consider it a snake, concluding that it reminded him more of a nautilus (Garboe 1959, 30; Worm 1655, 86).
Worm 1751, letter 791: ‘Alterum, qvod ante fuit vegetabile, artificiale aut animale, in lapidem demum conversum’.
Worm 1751, letter 791: ‘Existimo, spiritum qvendam salinum lapidificum subtilem sese corporis poris insinuare’.
Worm 1751, letter 791: ‘Et qvia hic spiritus lapidificus non semper ejusdem est naturæ, hinc sit, ut talium lapidum duriores qvidam, qvidam molliores & friabiliores reddantur’.
Worm mentions the hot springs in Karlsbad, Germany (1751, letter 791; see also Worm 1655, 51).
Eck 2015; Jacobs 2005.
The related research field of terminology of contemporary art theory is comprehensive, for a short introduction; see Kemp 1977.
Worm 1751, letter 567: ‘Qvæ omnia pro Columna facere mihi videntur, ac evidenter docere, in istis locis succum, aut spiritum potius, esse lapidificum, qvi hæc præstare sufficiens sit, ossea corpora penetrando, & in sui naturam convertendo’.
Worm 1751, letter 567: ‘Suspicor itaqve, in locis maritimis, præsertim ubi & piscis hujus copia, & limus vi lapidifica præditus, dentes mortuorum piscium in lapides converti, & alibi in mediterraneis ludentem naturam lapides ejusdem figuræ fingere’. The term lusus naturae and its variations have been translated in various ways: as play, jokes or the wit of nature.
Worm 1751, letter 567: ‘Mire ludit natura, ubi ministerio succi aut spiritus lapidifici utitur’.
Worm 1751, letter 567: ‘In Museo silicem hominem diaphragmate tenus æmulantem, ostento; pedem sinistrum exacte refert alius; est, qvui avem referat, ossa hominum, osteocolla, cornu, & unicornu fossile; pisa æmulantur guttæ Thermarum Carolinarum’. I rely on Schepelern’s translation of the verbs: see Worm 1968, 36–38.
Worm 1655, 82–83; Schepelern 1971, 183–186.
Worm 1751, letter 297; Worm 1655, 84–85, 87.
Galster 1941. Denmark was affected by witch-hunting in the 17th century; see Kallestrup 2019. The oral folklore stories were collected and published in the 19th century by Evald Tang Kristensen. A small part of the huge source collection has been translated and digitised: ‘WitchHunter & Trollfinder: Mapping Evald Tang Kristensen Collection’, http://etkspace.scandinavian.ucla.edu/maps/witchhunter.html [accessed 16 June 2018].
Worm 1655, 85: ‘Vel quòd panes hi nunquam very fuerint panes, sed lusus naturæ in genere lapidum […]’.
Worm 1751, letter 791: ‘Summa: primo aspectu jurares favum, ex candida cera virginea factum, lapideæ basi insistere, cum tamen totum corpus siliceæ sit duritiei’. See also id. 1655, 77.
See also Worm’s descriptions of a stone imitating both male and female genitals, hysterolithos (Worm 1655, 83–84; id. 1751, letter 1005).
Worm 1751, letter 1004. On wider interest in locating and extracting a succus or gur, see Alfonso-Goldfarb & Ferraz 2012.
Worm 1751, letter 1004: ‘Et quis scit, annon terra, huic lapidi adnata, si purificetur, lavetur, & in orbes redigatur, easdem possideat vires & proprietates?
Worm 1655, 174, 312. On Worm’s references to ‘nature’s play’ in the section of animals and plants, see Mordhorst 2009, 158. In the part concerning the mineral kingdom, the expression ‘nature’s play’ is more frequently used (Worm 1655, 36, 45, 69, 76, 80, 85, 116). The indirect ways of referencing ‘nature’s play’, such as to ‘emulate’ or ‘draw’, demand further study.
Findlen 1990; Daston & Park 2001.
Worm 1655, 312; Mordhorst 2009, 145.
Worm 1655, 40. See Worm’s description of the agate and its playfulness (Worm 1655, 96).
Worm 1655, 36: ‘Cum mirè in iis ludat Natura’; ibid., 81: ‘Mire ludit Natura in omnibus rerum naturalium speciebus’. Also quoted in Findlen 1990, 292; Garboe 1959, 30; Kragh 2006, 20.
For a study of this case, see Tarp 2013 and Mordhorst 2009, 169–171.
There is no evidence in the written sources that Worm showed this marble piece to an audience; by contrast, he is known to have presented a piece of rock crystal bearing a crucifix to a group of travellers (Tarp 2018; Schepelern 1971, 158).
Worm 1655, 38: ‘Cogimur igitur fateri, Naturam polydædalam, multa sinu suo sovere, quorum rationem nemo unquam investigabit.’ I rely on Axel Garboe’s translation (1959, 30). Also cited in a letter by Edward Lhwyd; see Beringer 1963, 146; Roos 2011, 187–188.
Worm 1655, 76; Felfe 2015, 128.
Felfe 2015, 128; Schepelern 1971.
Findlen 1990, 293; Federhofer 2006.
Gould 2004, 216–2017; Richet 2007, 101.
Sass and Wenderholm 2017; Porter 1972; Janson 1952.
Henning, this volume.
For research projects inspired by the functionalities of octopus skin, see the Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering at the University of Chicago.