Basel Historical Museum's new permanent exhibition in the basement of the Barf��er Church has opened on 13th November, concluding the most important milestone in the modernization of the museum. With 1200 square metres of state-of-the-art exhibition space at its disposal, the museum has been able to redesign its permanent exhibition from the ground up. The new show appropriately titled "Understanding the World" reveals how perceptions of the world change over time and invites visitors to take a fresh look at its superb collection.

Works of art, scientific artefacts and objects of everyday use tell us a lot about how people perceive the world. While the Basel tapestries from the Late Middle Ages depict alternative fantasy worlds, the cabinets of curiosities in which 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century collectors amassed objects from all fields of study paint a vivid picture of what was already known about the real one. While coins and medals have been telling us about peoples and cultures for more than two and a half millennia, the archaeological excavations conducted since the Renaissance have greatly added to our knowledge of ancient civilizations and lost worlds.

A World in Small � The Great Cabinet of Curiosities: Several major collectors in Basel between the 16th and 18th century created "a world in small" for their own private enjoyment.

The theme of collecting is introduced by the estate of Erasmus of Rotterdam, which following his death in Basel in 1536 became the rootstock of the Amerbach Cabinet.

The Great Cabinet of Curiosities is also the fulcrum leading to two adjoining sections: the Burgundian Booty and a collection of coins and medals, which as legal tender and miniature works of art cover a longer time span and a larger geographical compass than any other group of objects in the museum. The coins presented here under the heading "The World's History in Your Hand" tell us a lot about times past, while the focus in the case of medals is on their function as works of art and propaganda immortalized in metal.

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