I N F L A M M O P H A R M A C O L O G Y
2008
9th International
Conference 8-10th September 2008
In the Long Gallery of the
President’s Lodge of Queens’ “Vigani’s Cabinet” can be found. It
contains almost 700 items ranging across the animal, vegetable and mineral
kingdoms and of great interest the fields of chemistry, pharmacy and
medicine. In addition, the cabinet contains about 80 inorganic and 90
organic fine art materials as well as many original
invoices and letters. All that is missing is an authenticated portrait of
the man himself!
The cabinet was the brain-child of
John Francis Vigani. He was originally from Verona and had travelled
widely throughout Europe before arriving in London. He married a girl from
Newark, a town just under 120km NNW of Cambridge, where he set up home,
subsequently owning two pharmacies. However, he chose to spend his time
lecturing on chemistry and pharmacy to Cambridge undergraduates, leaving the
day-to-day running of his pharmacies to his wife.
On the strength of his teaching, he was elected to the first
chair of chemistry in the university in 1702 Julian Calendar). He
persuaded Queens’ not only to pay for the cabinet (£10) but for most of its
contents, which is why it remains in the college to this day even though he was
“head-hunted” by Trinity College almost immediately after the cabinet was completed.
Vigani
used the
cabinet as a focus of his teaching but also a source of material medica for
treating ailments as well as to house some specimens that could only be
described as curios. Curio cabinets were quite common in the houses of the
nobility and well-to-do. These cabinets, together with the great
collections of the day gave rise to the British Museum founded in the middle of
the 18th Century. The images show what the cabinet looks like with its
many drawers of different sizes to fit the specimens.
There is
no doubt that the cabinet is a treasure of great scientific and cultural value,
which is now only
being re-evaluated, since the cabinet sank into virtual
oblivion in the middle of the 18th Century.
Dr Lisa Wagner researched the cabinet for her PhD, as a
graduate student of the Institute of Fine Art
Restoration in Dresden and is
now at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Lisa is undoubtedly one
of
the leaders in this exciting field of research that crosses the “divide”
between arts and sciences and also
from the beginning of the “Age of Reason”
to the more materialistic research of today. The group in
Dresden are
now working on the analysis of many of the key specimens in the cabinet,
identified as being of
key importance in the history of the fine arts and
portraiture in particular.
The cabinet and its
contents will be on view at times to be arranged during and after the
conference.