Heidelberg and the East: Marcus zum Lamm Collects Turcica for his Thesaurus Picturarum , c.1600

Between 1570 and 1606, the Heidelberg lawyer, Palatine courtier and Calvinist church councillor Marcus zum Lamm (1546–1606) collected manuscript turcica images and texts for his visual encyclopaedia, the Thesaurus Picturarum. He combined apocalyptic readings of ‘the Turks’ with his interests in aesthetics and visual knowledge, global craft, nature and ethnography. As the first work dedicated to Lamm’s turcica collection and the Heidelberg court’s fascination with embodied difference across the globe, this article argues that Lamm’s Thesaurus reveals the complexity of a German Calvinist’s attitudes towards Islam and the Ottoman Empire. Lamm was part of a network in Calvinist Heidelberg whose members were captivated by histories, travel accounts, costume images and objects pertaining to Ottoman lands, as well as diverse other regions such as Muscovy and Africa. By considering Lamm’s turcica collection in the broader contexts of confessionalism and political thought, the article uncovers the lifeworld of Lamm’s Calvinist milieu. Here new encounters, international networks, and rare and luxury goods, as well as collections of images and objects from across the globe, were viewed as indispensable to the social fabric of the court and the success of the Palatine state.