ABSTRACT
Apart from collecting the odd object during his educational journey Ole Worm would appear initially to have focussed on botany, creating a garden for which he collected plants. Worm collected rare natural objects in a disorderly fashion until 1623 when he started to bring a more systematic approach to his collecting. By the end of the decade he had also begun including man-made objects in his collection. By 1630 a cabinet of curiosity had come into existence and visitors had begun to arrive. However, the 1640s proved the period when Worm’s museum really took shape and witnessed exponential growth. Worm’s friendship with the wealthy natural historian Johannes de Laet proved crucial for this development, as did the assistance he received from his nephews on their peregrinatio academica and his friends on Iceland and the Faroe Isles. The growing fame of Worm’s cabinet of curiosity guaranteed that most prominent men travelling to or through Copenhagen paid him a visit. His museum history, Museum Wormianum, published immediately after his death guaranteed that his reputation as a collector and natural historian survived him.
