Kelly Joan Whitmer
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226243771
- eISBN:
- 9780226243801
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226243801.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter delves into the material and visual culture of the Halle Orphanage as scientific community and pays special attention to its construction and exhibition of one of the largest wooden ...
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This chapter delves into the material and visual culture of the Halle Orphanage as scientific community and pays special attention to its construction and exhibition of one of the largest wooden models of Solomon’s Temple ever made in this period. Francke’s friend, a local preacher-mathematician named Christoph Semler, built the model and left behind a detailed account of how he did so. In addition to technical skill and mathematical precision, it required an ability to combine and make visible the expertise of scholars from several confessional communities. The original was placed on display inside Orphanage and a copy of it was used during observational exercises inside the Pädagogium. It was used to teach young people how to be “eclectic observers,” how to emulate virtuous archetypes through systematically observing them, how to put things in perspective and how to see (and to reconcile) “all at once.”Less
This chapter delves into the material and visual culture of the Halle Orphanage as scientific community and pays special attention to its construction and exhibition of one of the largest wooden models of Solomon’s Temple ever made in this period. Francke’s friend, a local preacher-mathematician named Christoph Semler, built the model and left behind a detailed account of how he did so. In addition to technical skill and mathematical precision, it required an ability to combine and make visible the expertise of scholars from several confessional communities. The original was placed on display inside Orphanage and a copy of it was used during observational exercises inside the Pädagogium. It was used to teach young people how to be “eclectic observers,” how to emulate virtuous archetypes through systematically observing them, how to put things in perspective and how to see (and to reconcile) “all at once.”
