The results of such an analysis are interesting in two respects. Even though a confusing
variety of names was used to refer to the new institution, within a short period of time the
terms ‘museum” and “musaeum” emerged as the ones that were most frequently used to
denote the unit of the collections and the building together, i.e. the institution as a whole. On
the one hand that underscores the idea that Teylers Museum had been conceived as a kind of
late-Renaissance “temple to the muses”; on the other hand however — and realising this is
crucial to an understanding of the museum's subsequent development B Teylers Museum was
actually one of the last of its kind. Just a few years later the political and cultural sea changes
that swept Europe were set in motion. One tangible result of these changes was that the word
“museum” began to carry completely new connotations, and was increasingly equated with
publicly accessible, specialised collections. At the same time the growing specialisation
within academia led to a stronger emphasis of the differences between the fine arts and the
(empirical) natural sciences. Interestingly, “museums” in the new sense of the word were
largely associated with the fine arts. This in turn is important to keep in mind when studying
the history of Teylers Museum, because it of course housed both scientific collections and a
collection of fine art. As the 19‘ century progressed, ever more importance was attributed to
the collection of fine art at Teylers Museum too -Band as the scientific collections’ role
diminished and that of the art collections increased, Teylers Museum began to take on a role
as a public art “museum” in the modem sense, and lose its role as a “temple to the muses”.
So let us take a look at how the new institution was initially labelled. Many of the terms used
to refer to it have in fact already been mentioned above. The new building evidently started
life as a “Bookhall”. Then, it was increasingly called a “musaeum”. The first time it is
referred to by this name in writing is in the minutes of the Second Society’s meeting on
December 10th 1779: this is the meeting at which the trustees officially informed the members
of the Society about their new project.170 However, “musaeum” was by no means the only
term used to refer to the building. Very often, in fact, it was simply referred to as the “new
building”, or something to that extent (such as voorgenomen gebouw, or just “building”).
Then, in 1782, the term “Arthall” (KonstzaeT) is used alongside “Bookhall” for the first time,
and the separate collections are referred to as pertaining to different “branches of
connoisseurship” (takken van Liefhebberij).
Then, on January 17 1783, the term “Musaeum Teylerianum” was first used in the minutes
of the trustees’ meetings. One can’t go as far as to say that this constituted the christening of
the new institution, because for many years all the other terms continued to be used almost
interchangeably. What’s more, seemingly adding to the confusion, by this time the new
institution is persistently referred to not as a “musaeum”, but as a “museum” in the Second
Society’s minutes. So whereas van Marum referred to himself as the director of “Teylers
Museum” in the draft version of his contract as it was drawn up in 1784, the version that was
copied out in the minutes of the trustees’ meeting referred to “Teylers Musaeum”.
Nevertheless, the usage of the words “musaeum” or “museum” to denote the unit of the
collections and the building at this point is highly revealing.
170 “Notulen Tweede Genootschap”, 10.12.1779, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 1382.
In order to be able to appreciate just how significant this is, one needs to learn a little more
about the word “musaeum” itself, i.e. its etymological roots and the connotations it carried
before and during the 18th century. Its origins can be traced back to Greek antiquity, and more
specifically the museion in Alexandria.171 According to the few historical records that remain,
this was a meeting place for scholars with a legendary library, all of which was devoted to the
muses - hence museion. This, at least, was the general consensus at the end of the 18’
century, as recorded in dictionaries all over Europe. However, this seemingly ignored the fact
that a hill on which poetry was recited in Athens had also been named after the muses and
might very well have formed the real origin of the word “museum” in all its varieties.
To the same degree to which Renaissance scholars now returned to the works and values of
antiquity, the Alexandrian museion was rediscovered as one of the nodal points of the learned
world of antiquity and began to gain almost mythical proportions. Soon, the Latin derivative
of the Greek word, “musaeum”, was used ever more liberally and no longer just in referring to
the Alexandrian institution itself, thereby acquiring broader connotations. In Renaissance
Italy, for instance, “musaeum was an epistemological structure which encompassed a variety
of ideas, images and institutions that were central to late Renaissance culture”, as Paula
Findlen has eloquently shown.172 “Musaeum”, she elaborates, increasingly became “an apt
metaphor for the encyclopaedic tendencies of the period”173 and was ultimately associated
more and more with the collection of knowledge, until “musaeum was a locating principle,
circumscribing the space in which learned activities could occur”.
At this point it is important to emphasise that any definition of the word “musaeum” was not
in any way reduced to - or even necessarily associated with - material collections. Scholarly
journals or the collected works of one author for example were denoted as “musaeums”
too.174 In late 18th century France “muséum” could essentially be equated with “academy”, i.e.
in some sense with a collection of scholars and all the material prerequisites for them to
develop their intellect.175
It is in this sense - i.e. in the sense of a collection of knowledge, rather than a collection of
material objects - that one needs to understand the choice of the label “musaeum” for the new
institution of which van Marum was appointed the director (i.e. the future Teylers Museum).
What is particularly striking in this respect is that the trustees persistently used the Latin
spelling when referring to their new project whether they did so consciously or not is hardly
important, because the spelling of this word only highlights how firmly the trustees were
rooted in the humanist thought of the late Renaissance. Alongside the examples already
mentioned above, this is further underscored by the fact that they had the Oval Room
1 Unless otherwise indicated, the following summary is based on information provided in the articles: Paula
Findlen, “The Museum: Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy,” Journal o f the History o f
Collections 1, no. 1 (1989): 59-78; Paula Young Lee, “The Musaeum o f Alexandria and the Formation o f the
Muséum in Eighteenth-century France,” Art Bulletin 79, no. 3 (1997): 385—412.
172 Findlen, “The Museum: Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy,” 59.
173 Ibid.
|74 Ibid., 64.
175 Lee, “The Musaeum o f Alexandria and the Formation o f the Muséum in Eighteenth-century France,” 386.