ABSTRACT
As a concept which expressed a pattern of activity transcending the strict confines of museum itself, the idea of musaeum was an apt metaphor for the encyclopaedic tendencies of the period. Linguistically, musaeum was a bridge between social and intellectual life, moving effortlessly between these two realms, and in fact pointing to the fluidity and instability of categories such as ‘social’ and ’intellectual’, and ‘public’ and ‘private’, as they were defined during the late Renaissance. The etymology of museum is itself a fascinating subject for study. In reviving the liberal arts, the humanists self-consciously placed themselves in the grove of the Muses, creating ‘museums’ as they did so, to stress their direct ties with ancient wisdom. The growth of humanist circles in the courts, churches, academies and publishing houses of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe signalled the beginnings of a more social and contemporaneous setting for the Muses.
