Itinerarium exstaticum
1656 literary work by Athanasius Kircher
Itinerarium exstaticum quo mundi opificium is a 1656 work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It is an imaginary dialogue in which an angel named Cosmiel takes the narrator, Theodidactus ('taught by God'), on a journey through the planets. It is the only work by Kircher devoted entirely to astronomy, and one of only two pieces of imaginative fiction by him. A revised and expanded second edition, entitled Iter Exstaticum, was published in 1660.
The main theme of the work is space exploration through outer space. The novel's main character finds himself guided through the heavens by a guiding angel. Kircher depicts stars of different sizes, accompanied by planets, turning around each other and moving through space. The stars, as he described them were “fixed” but moved in circular orbits sometimes in systems of binary stars or multiple stars, with vast distances between them. As he believed they were very far away and all moved around the Earth (a geocentric model), Kircher believed that they moved with tremendous speed.
Background
In his 1641 work Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica, Kircher had argued against the cosmological theories of both Kepler and Galileo, but had written nothing on the subject since.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Itinerarium exstaticum” is 1656 literary work by Athanasius Kircher. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Itinerarium, exstaticum and literary, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1656 literary work by Athanasius Kircher” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q96383449. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1656, 1660 and 1641.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Itinerarium exstaticum”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Itinerarium exstaticum primary sources, Itinerarium exstaticum archive and Itinerarium research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Itinerarium exstaticum”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Itinerarium exstaticum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.