Kircher was born five years before the first permanent English settlement in the New World. But let him tell us in the words of his Latin autobiography, parts of which, it is believed, are here translated into English for the first time: “At the third hour after midnight on the second of May in the year 1602, I was brought into the common air of disaster at Geysa, a town which is a three hours’ journey from Fulda.” (Not far from the modern Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany.) “When I was six days old I was dedicated to Athanasius by my parents, John Kircher and Anna Gansekin, Catholics and servants of God and workers of good deeds, because I was born on that Saint’s Feast Day.”
Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae, 1671
MAGIC LANTERN, Kircher’s projector, the original stereopticon. The screen images were crude silhouettes but the projector included the essential elements.
Kircher thus described his father, mother and the family: “John Kircher was a very great scholar and a doctor of philosophy. When the report of his learning and wisdom came to the Prince,” (probably Rudolph), “he was summoned and made a member of the council at Fulda. Later he was put in charge of the fortress of Haselstein because he had been diligent in destroying the printing machines of the heretics. He married a maiden of Fulda, Anna, daughter of an honest citizen named Gansekin. Nine children, six boys and three girls, were born to them. All the boys entered one of the several religious orders. Of all these I was the youngest and smallest.”
Kircher’s father was a man of influence and learning, though evidently not of noble birth. He had studied philosophy and theology but was not a religious, though he did teach for a time in a Benedictine monastery. Very likely he was a stern parent. The mother, it would appear, was the daughter of a merchant or store-keeper and certainly was not learned like her husband. But no doubt she was more liberal and understanding.
Kircher’s course of studies is interesting: “After the age of childhood, around the tenth year, I was placed in the elementary studies, at first at Music; then I was introduced to the elements of the Latin language.” At that time Latin was still the universal language of scholarship. It is likely that Kircher spoke Latin much more than any other language. All his writing was in Latin, though in time he became a talented linguist.
Kircher’s father sent him to the Jesuit college at Fulda, because he wanted his youngest son to learn Greek in addition to Latin and in time to become a universal scholar. Kircher’s teacher at Fulda was John Altink, S.J. The course followed the famous Jesuit Ratio Studiorum, which is still the basis of studies in the many hundreds of schools conducted by that order throughout the world. Then, as now, emphasis was on the classics. Somewhat later his father took him to a Rabbi “who taught me Hebrew,” as Kircher wrote, “with the result that I was skilled in that language for the rest of my life.”
At the same age as a high school graduate in the United States, Kircher could read, write and speak Latin, Greek and Hebrew, in addition to German, and probably he also had a good foundation in French and Italian.
At the old town of Paderborn on October 2, 1618, Kircher entered the Society of Jesus, militant religious order founded by the Spaniard-soldier-churchman, Ignatius of Loyola, in 1540, and already a powerful influence in education in Europe and in missionary work even as far as India and Japan. Kircher did not enter the Jesuits as early as he had wished because he had fallen while ice-skating and had suffered an injury.