The Central European University

Jewish Studies Program, Early Modern Studies and Department of History

cordially invite you to a lecture by

Michael Korey

(Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon)

The Gantse Megillah:

Collecting and Displaying Judaica in 18th-Century Central Europe - The Forgotten History of a Non-Jewish Curiosity

From the 1720s, the "scientific" collections of the Saxon princely court were displayed in the renowned Zwinger complex in Dresden. Among these publicly accessible museums was also a "Juden-Cabinet," which featured a monumental model of the Temple and a full-size. fully-equipped synagogue. The richly-illustrated lecture tracks the origin and influence of this Cabinet, offering an intriguing prehistory to the evolution of later Jewish museums and broadening our knowledge of Christian Hebraism in the long 18th century. 

Tuesday, October 10 at 6 p.m.

Gellner Room, Monument Building

 Trained as a mathematician at Princeton, Cambridge (UK), and Chicago, Dr. Michael Korey has served since 2002 as a historian of science and curator at the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon of the Dresden State Art Collections. He studies mathematical, optical, and philosophical instruments in their cultural contexts, especially in relation to early-modern princely courts. His current research includes a survey of the world's oldest surviving telescopes (with Marv Bolt, Corning Museum of Glass). He heads the project "Deus ex machina," which has brought together an international team of historians, clockmakers, and computer scientists to investigate planetary automata from the Renaissance. From 2013 to 2017 he served as Secretary of the Scientific Instrument Commission of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. In his work on the history of the Saxon court collections, he uncovered the material that forms the basis for the present lecture.