Paula Findlen is Ubaldo Pierotti Professor of Italian History and Director of the Science, Technology and Society Program at Stanford University. She is the author of Possessing Nature and coeditor of Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science and Art in Early Modern Europe, published by Routledge.

Introduction: Athanasius Kircher and His World Section I: The Art of Being Kircher Chapter One: Eugenio Lo Sardo, Kircher's Rome: A Way to Understand the Celeberrimus Museum Kircherianum Chapter Two: Martha Baldwin, Reveries in Time of Plague: Kircher and the Plague Epidemic of 1656 Chapter Three: Harald Siebert, Kircher and His Critics: Censorial Practice and Pragmatic Disregard in the Society of Jesus Chapter Four: Angela Mayer-Deutsch, 'Quasi-Optical Palingenesis': The Circulation of Portraits and the Image of Kircher Section II: The Sciences of Erudition Chapter Five: Peter Miller, Kircher, Peiresc, and the Foundation of Coptic Studies: Or, The Quest for Barachias Nephi Chapter Six: Daniel Stolzenberg, Four Trees, Some Amulets, and the Seventy-Two Names of God: Kircher Reveals the Kabbalah Chapter Seven: Anthony Grafton, Kircher's Chronology Section III: The Mysteries of Man and the Cosmos Chapter Eight: Ingrid Rowland, Athanasius Kircher, Giordano Bruno, and the Panspermia of the Infinite Universe Chapter Nine: Stephen Jay Gould, Father Athanasius on the Isthmus of a Middle State: Understanding Kircher's Paleontology, a Radical Reassessment for the Most Important Scholar of a Fascinating Time Chapter Ten: Barbara Stafford, Leibniz's Cosmology: Reflections in a Kircherian Mirror Section IV: Communicating Knowledge Chapter Eleven: Haun Saussy, Magnetic Language: Athanasius Kircher and Communication Chapter Twelve: Nick Wilding, Publishing the Polygraphy: Manuscript, Instrument, and Print in the Work of Athanasius Kircher Chapter Thirteen: Noel Malcolm, Private and Public Knowledge: Kircher, Esotericism and the Republic of Letters Chapter Fourteen: Michael John Gorman, The Angel and the Compass: Athanasius Kircher's Geographical Project Section V: The Global Shape of Knowledge Chapter Fifteen: Carlos Ziller Camenietzki, Baroque Science between the Old World and the New: Father Kircher and His Fellow Jesuit, Valentin Stansel (1621-1705) Chapter Sixteen: Paula Findlen, A Jesuit's Books in the New World: Athanasius Kircher and His American Readers Chapter Seventeen: Michelle Molina, True Lies: Kircher's China Illustrata and the Life Story of a Mexican Mystic Chapter Eighteen: Florence Hsia Athanasius Kircher's China Illustrata (1667): An apologia pro sua vita Epilogue: The Afterlife of a Polymath Antonella Romano, Kircher in Context