Enlightenment Europe
During the seventeenth century much of Europe was divided by
religion as Roman Catholic states fought with Protestants. In the
1640s, England was torn apart by Civil War between royalist and
parliamentary (republican) armies.
South-eastern Europe remained part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire
whose army reached as far as Vienna in 1683. Spanish power
declined, while France under Louis XIV (reigned 1643-1715) came to
dominate Europe. Britain began to play a major role during the
eighteenth-century.
As international trade developed, states fought for control of
trade routes and for world-wide colonies.
The late seventeenth century saw a change in the intellectual
approach in Europe that is known as the Enlightenment. Knowledge
came to be understood as debatable, as growing from investigation
and observation rather than being accepted on the basis of some
long respected authority. Enlightenment attitudes led to the
foundation of many modern disciplines that are the bedrock of
Western culture and learning, and brought about long term effects
on society at all levels.
The British Museum was founded in 1753 when the physician Sir
Hans Sloane left his collection to the nation. The Museum was a
product of Enlightenment thinking - a desire to collect and study
objects from every known culture.
The Enlightenment Gallery shows objects related to the
intellectual aims of the Museum’s founders. Objects collected or
made by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europeans can be found
throughout the Museum.
Image caption: Carved ivory bust of Sir
Isaac Newton by David Le Marchand
London, England, AD 1718