The Last Man Who Knew Everything

Athanasius Kircher was a Jesuit polymath whose intellect was matched only by his willingness to believe in the fantastic. A true product of the Royal Courts era, he published nearly 40 massive works on subjects ranging from geology to music theory, often blending rigorous observation with pure imagination.

• He is infamously credited with the design of the Katzenklavier (Cat Organ), an instrument that used cats of different pitches whose tails were pricked by keys to produce "music."
• Driven by a fearless curiosity, he once had himself lowered by rope into the crater of Mount Vesuvius while it was erupting to better understand the internal workings of volcanoes.
• Kircher claimed to have deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs centuries before the Rosetta Stone was found; however, his translations were entirely fabricated, based on his belief that they were mystical symbols rather than a language.

He built a museum in Rome filled with mechanical automatons, "magic lanterns," and biological oddities. Though many of his scientific theories were eventually debunked, his unrestrained wonder and bizarre inventions make him one of the most colorful figures in the history of science.