Publisher's Synopsis
"In an age of polymaths, Kircher was perhaps the most polymathic of them all."-Anthony Grafton, Princeton University (Q in NYT 5/25/02)
"[Kircher] made vomiting machines and eavesdropping statues. He transcribed bird song and wrote a book about musicology (still used today). He taught Nicholas Poussin perspective and made a chamber of mirrors to drive cats crazy. He invented the first slide projector and had himself lowered into the mouth of Mount Vesuvius just as it was supposed to erupt. He proved the impossibility of the Tower of Babel. . . .With his labyrinthine mind, he was Jorge Luis Borges before Borges."-Sarah Boxer, New York Times