Documenting the factual and the artifactual: Ole Worm and public knowledge

During the course of his life, Worm made an epistemological shift from the sometimes secretive world of the late Renaissance Neoplatonist and Paracelsian philosopher, from the chemical laborant protecting proprietary processes, to the more open collection of natural and artificial particulars, objects that were stabile, public authorities, regardless of the theories that human minds might spin.