I don’t get to see my Czech cousins very often, but this past summer I found myself in Prague, sitting in an outdoor restaurant with him, his sister (Petra), his mother (Jana), and his grandmother (Mila). I told them about The Cabinet of Wonders, and reminded David of the conversation we had had about ten years ago by the clocktower.
He paused. Then, in that careful, generous way he has when speaking my language, he said, “But I think this legend is not true.”
It never mattered to me whether the story was true or not. Most of The Cabinet of Wonders is pure invention, brewed in my own personal Thinkers’ Wing laboratory. I took what I wanted from history. What I took, I changed.
The Cabinet of Wonders is set during the European Renaissance, at the very end of the sixteenth century, but my Renaissance has magic and all sorts of events that are different from what actually happened. Mikal Kronos’s clock is similar to the one David showed me, but it is not the same.
Prince Rodolfo is loosely based on Rudolf II, who was part of the Hapsburg family and inherited the title of Holy Roman Emperor after the death of his father, Maximilian II. Rudolf was already emperor and more than thirty years old when he moved his court from Vienna to Prague. Rodolfo, on the other hand, is very young and doesn’t have nearly as much power. But Rudolf and Rodolfo have something in common: they both owned a cabinet of wonders.
Originally, a cabinet of wonders was a piece of furniture meant to display odd, beautiful objects. Wealthy people built their collections over time, and a cabinet could house things like narwhal tusks (which some people thought were unicorn horns), oil paintings, and ostrich eggs. Sometimes a collection grew until the cabinet overflowed, and its contents filled an entire room. Then the collection filled many rooms. Eventually, it became what today we call a museum.
Rudolf II’s cabinet of wonders was one of the most impressive in Europe. The king was attracted to bizarre items, machinery, and new inventions. Magic fascinated him, and he welcomed people who claimed they could practice it.
One such person was John Dee. He was a real man, and a fascinating one at that. He was a well-known magician, mathematician, astrologer, adviser to Queen Elizabeth, a visitor to Bohemia, and (probably) a spy.
Dee and many other people in the Renaissance believed in the power of scrying. It was thought that only children could scry, and that they needed to stare at a crystal, mirror, or oil-covered surface in order to do it. Dee tried to teach his eight-year-old son, Arthur, how to scry, though the boy saw nothing special in the crystal. Before you think that the real John Dee was just as unpleasant as mine, I should say that there are no historical documents about children losing their minds as a result of scrying. I made that part up.
Neel is fictional, but the Roma certainly are real. Though their origins are uncertain, the Roma likely came from India and then traveled throughout the Middle East, Europe, and other parts of the world, facing suspicion and even persecution. For five hundred years, they suffered enslavement in Romania until this was abolished in the nineteenth century. In more recent history, hundreds of thousands of Roma were killed during the Holocaust.
Although the Roma in The Cabinet of Wonders share some things in common with real Roma, Neel’s culture is highly fictionalized. The story of Danior has no origin in anything other than my imagination (and my love of elephants), but the one Neel tells Petra about the fiddler is based on a Hungarian Romany tale recorded by Vladislav Kornel in A Book of Gypsy Folk-Tales. I have changed this oral legend in several ways.
Now it’s time for me to confess something. I’m a little worried that someone, somewhere is going to object to the way I’ve manhandled history. I can already hear a disapproving sniff, followed by the words, “History is not a toy for you to play with, Marie.”
So I asked Astrophil what he thought.
He pondered. “But—correct me if I am wrong—you are not a historian.”
No, I replied. I write fiction.
“Did you make any promises to anyone to be historically accurate?” the spider asked.
Not that I recall.
“Well, then.” Astrophil settled into his favorite resting position. “I do not think you need to worry.”
Oh, good.
“I am also relieved,” he admitted. “After all, I am not historically accurate. But I exist.”
Which, I thought, was as good a perspective as I am likely to get.
December 2007
New York City
Acknowledgments
I owe my first thanks to my grandmother, Jennie Hlavac (born Zdenka Pavliek) for always keeping me aware of my Bohemian heritage. I am also grateful to our relatives Mila Kostova and Viktor, Jana, David, and Petra Valouch.
Many friends read drafts of The Cabinet of Wonders, offered me a beautiful place in which to write it, discussed ideas with me, or gave encouragement: Manuel Amador, Eric Bennett, Esther Duflo, Dave Elfving, Caroline Ellison, Francesco Franco (whose Genovese is acclaimed in several countries), Erik Gray, Dominic Leggett, Jonathan Murphy, Becky Rosenthal, and Holger Syme. My greatest debt is to two amazing friends: Neel Mukherjee and Bret Anthony Johnston. This book would not exist without you.
I’m grateful to Charlotte Sheedy, Meredith Kaffel, Violaine Huisman, and Marcy Posner for their faith in Cabinet. Finally, many thanks to Janine O’Malley, who helped make this book the best it could be. I’m lucky to have such a wise and delightful editor.
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