Musaeum 1502199 214962086 2008-05-26T02:34:57Z Wetman 21492 added a supportive note The '''Musaeum at Alexandria''' ([[Greek language|Greek]]: Μουσείον της Αλεξάνδρειας), which included the famous [[Library of Alexandria]],<ref>The relation of the institutions is still a matter of debate. The ''Musaeum'' is discussed by P.M. Fraser, ''Ptolemaic Alexandria'' (1972: vol. I:213-19 etc), and Mostafa el-Addabi, ''The Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria'' (Paris 1990:84-90).</ref> was an institution apparently founded by [[Ptolemy I Soter]] or, perhaps more likely, [[Ptolemy II Philadelphus]]<ref>There is no ancient source for the founding either of the Library or the Musaeum, Roger S. Bagnall notes, in "Alexandria: Library of Dreams", ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' '''146'''.4 (December 2002:348-362) p. 348. We rely instead on the self-confident but unreliable Byzantine scholar [[Johannes Tzetzes]]' remarks in an introduction to Aristotle.</ref> at ancient [[Alexandria]] in [[Egypt]] which remained supported by the patronage of the royal family of the [[Ptolemies]]. Such a Greek ''Mouseion'' was the home of music or poetry, a philosophical school and library such as [[Plato]]'s [[Academy]], also a gallery of sacred texts.<ref>Entry [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2368883 Μουσείον] at [[Liddell & Scott]]</ref> ''Mouseion'', connoting an assemblage gathered together under the protection of the [[Muses]], was the title given to a collection of stories about the esteemed writers of the past assembled by [[Alcidamas]], an Athenian [[sophist]] of the fourth century BCE. Though the ''Musaeum'' at Alexandria did not have a collection of sculpture and painting presented as works of art,<ref>The Ptolemaic dynasty displayed these in their palace nearby.</ref> as was assembled by the Ptolemies' rival [[Attalus]] at [[Pergamon]], it did have a room devoted to the study of [[anatomy]] and an installation for astronomical observations. Rather than simply a [[museum]] in the sense that has developed since the Renaissance, it was an institution that brought together some of the best scholars of the [[Hellenistic civilization|Hellenistic world]], as Germain Bazin compared it, "analogous to the modern [[Institute for Advanced Study]] at Princeton or to the [[Collège de France]] on Paris."<ref>Bazin, ''The Museum Age'' 1967:16.</ref> [[Strabo]] gives an account of the Musaeum as it was in his day: <blockquote>"The Mouseion is also part of the palaces, possessing a ''peripatos''<ref>An open loggia for walking and talking.</ref> and ''exedra''<ref>The curved seat of an ''exedra'' is more accommodating to a group conversation than a bench in a straight line.</ref> and large ''oikos'', in which the common table<ref>''Oikos'' signifies "household" in the broadest sense; an English analogy might be a university "commons".</ref> of the ''philologoi'', men who are members of the ''Mouseion'', is located. This ''synodos'' has property in common and a priest in charge of the ''Mouseion'', formerly appointed by the kings, but now by Caesar."<ref>Strabo, ''Geography'' 17.1.8, noted by Bagnall 2002:57 note 39.</ref></blockquote> The edited versions of the Greek [[literary canon]] that we know today, from [[Homer]] and [[Hesiod]] forward, exist in editions that were collated and corrected by the scholars assembled in the Musaeum at Alexandria. This original '''Musaeum''' or '''Institution of the Muses''' was the source for the modern usage of the word ''[[museum#etymology|museum]]''. In early modern [[France]] it denoted as much a community of scholars brought together under one roof as it did the collections themselves. French and English writers referred to these collections as a "cabinet" as in "a [[cabinet of curiosities]]." A catalogue of the 17th century collection of [[John Tradescant the elder]] and [[John Tradescant the younger|his son of the same name]], which was the founding core of the [[Ashmolean Museum]] in [[Oxford]], was published as ''[[Musaeum Tradescantianum]]: or, a Collection of Rarities. Preserved at South-[[Lambeth]] near [[London]] by John Tradescant'', 1656. The classic period of the Musaeum did not survive the purge and expulsion of most of the intellectuals attached to it in 145 BCE, when [[Aristarchus of Samothrace]] resigned his position; at any rate, the sources that best describe the Musaeum and library, [[Johannes Tzetzes]] and others, all Byzantine and late, do not mention any further directors.<ref>Daniel Heller-Roazen, "Tradition's Destruction: On the Library of Alexandria" ''October'', '''100''', Obsolescence (Spring 2002:133-1530 esp. p. 140. </ref> ==Notes== {{reflist}} ==References== *Canfora, Luciano, ''The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World,'' 1987. (The only modern history.) *Lee, "The Musaeum of Alexandria and the formation of the 'Museum' in eighteenth-century France," in ''The Art Bulletin,'' September 1997. ==Notes== {{reflist}} [[Category:Ancient Egyptian society]] [[Category:Defunct museums in Egypt]] [[Category:Former buildings and structures of Egypt]] [[Category:History of museums]] [[Category:Museology]] [[Category:Muses| Musaeum]] [[Category:Museums in Egypt]] [[Category:Types of museum]] [[es:Museion]] [[fr:Museion]] [[it:Museo (Alessandria)]] [[nl:Mouseion]] [[ja:ムセイオン]] [[pl:Muzeum Aleksandryjskie]] [[sk:Alexandrijské museion]] [[sv:Museion]]