The original Musaeum or Temple of the Muses at ancient Alexandria was the source for the modern usage, which denoted in Early Modern France as much a community of scholars brought together under one roof as it did the collections themselves, which French and English writers referred to as a "cabinet" as in "a cabinet of curiosities." A catalogue of the 17th century collection of John Tradescant, which was the founding core of the Ashmolean Museum was published as Musaeum Tradescantianum: or, a Collection of Rarities. Preserved at South-Lambeth near London by John Tradescant, 1656. Antiquity and modernity stand cheek-by-jowl in Egypts chief Mediterranean seaport Located on the Mediterranean Sea coast, Alexandria (in Arabic, الإسكندرية — al-Iskandariyah) is the chief seaport in Egypt, and that countrys second largest city, and the capital of the Al Iskandariyah governate. ... Two John Tradescants, father and son, were among the earliest English botanists and plantsmen, travellers and collectors. ... The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England is the worlds first university museum. ...
The Musaeum at Alexandria, which included the famous Library of Alexandria, was an institution founded by the Ptolemies and under their patronage. More complete coverage is at Library of Alexandria. The Royal Library of Alexandria was once the largest in the world. ... Ptolemy, one of Alexander the Greats generals, was appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexanders death in 323 BC. In 305 BC he declared himself King Ptolemy I, later known as Soter (saviour). ... The Royal Library of Alexandria was once the largest in the world. ...
References
Canfora, Luciano, The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World, 1987. The only modren history.
Lee, "The Musaeum of Alexandria and the formation of the 'Museum' in eighteenth-century France," inThe Art Bulletin, September 1997
In early modern France, on the other hand, the Latin term musaeum was expressly and often exclusively understood to refer to the Musaeum of Alexandria, defined as a group of scholars dedicated to the study of the arts, sciences, and letters.
Because the artifactual Musaeum had been irrevocably destroyed and very little primary documentation remained, scholars were repeatedly frustrated in their attempts to locate a place that had vanished from sight but not from memory.
Instead, they were forced to confront the Musaeum in terms of the geographical, historical, and philosophical problems that this elusive subject raised: as a monumental depository of learned scholarship that had been but was no more, the Musaeum embodied the survival of the past through translation and reconfiguration, one form yielding to another.
Musaeum Clausum also known as Bibliotheca abscondita is an inventory of remarkable Books, Antiquities, Pictures and Rarities of several kinds, scarce or never seen by any man now living written by Sir Thomas Browne in his old age (an event from the year 1675 is referred to) and published posthumously in 1684.
Like the encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Musaeum Clausum (the Sealed Museum) is a catalogue of doubts and queries, only this time, in true Borgesian style, in the form of extremely brief, thumb-nail descriptions of supposed, rumoured or lost books, picures and objects.
Musaeum Clausum also confirms that the ideas, imagery and symbolism of esoteric thought were of great interest to one of the leading intellectuals of seventeenth century Europe.
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