Expanding the Web

While evolutionary theory reshaped the framework of natural history, the Museo Nacional, and its curator, got new homes in a transformed Santiago. The government allocated the growing museum a further room, at the Universidad de Chile, splitting the museum between two sites, which was ultimately untenable. Philippi blamed the twin sites for the theft of gold artifacts, which were “the most valuable objects contained in our museum and nothing like them existed anywhere else” excavated from a tomb near Cuzco in 1870. 1 But a fabulous new building, purpose-built for exhibitions, was about to become available in the Quinta Normal, an agricultural facility on the city’s edge. In 1875, Chile had hosted a major international exhibition to showcase its progress to the world. Philippi described the exhibition’s building as a large, solidly built, but pretty, palace.2 When the exhibition closed, the National Agricultural Society (which ran the Quinta Normal) not only agreed that the main building would become the museum’s new home (Image 7.1), but also that Philippi, as director, would be given a house within the grounds, next to the museum. With this gesture, the agricultural society recognized Rodulfo’s key role in the development of the natural sciences and demonstrated, “although only in a small way, the affection and respect that you have known how to win through the services you have given the country.”3

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• Imperial Nature

  Jim Endersby•Imperial Nature•2008

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