Athanasius, a celebrated historian, philosopher, mathematician, and physical philosopher, was born May 2, 1602, at Geysen, a small town near Fulde in Germany. His parents were humble, but respectable, and exerted themselves to give him a good education. Having finished his studies, he joined the society of the Jesuits, where he found new means of satisfying his passion for learning, and applied himself with equal ardour to almost every department of knowledge. Being appointed to teach philosophy, and afterwards the oriental languages, in the college of Wurtzburg, he acquitted himself of this double duty in the most satisfactory manner. When the Thirty Years' War broke out he retired into France, and settled in the Jesuits' College at Avignon, where he passed two years, entirely occupied with the study of antiquities. It was during his residence in this city that he became acquainted with the learned Peirese, who advised him to attempt to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphics, a task to which he afterwards applied himself with great zeal, though, unfortunately, with but indifferent success. Appointed professor of mathematics at Vienna, he was preparing to return to Germany, when he received an order to repair to Rome, whither he accordingly proceeded without delay. In 1637, the pope charged him to accompany Cardinal Frederick of Saxony to Malta, where he was received by the Knights of St John with much distinction. He next visited Sicily and the kingdom of Naples, and then proceeded to take possession of the chair of mathematics in the Roman College, a situation which he filled for eight years, and only relinquished to apply himself to more congenial pursuits. In his researches and experiments he received valuable aid from many princes and nobles of Germany, Italy, and Spain; and through their liberality was enabled to collect a splendid museum of antiquities, which he left to the Roman College, and has been frequently illustrated. He died at Rome, Nov. 28, 1680, the same day on which Bernini and Grimaldi expired.

Kircher was a man of wide and varied, but ill-digested erudition, and a most voluminous writer. He had a vast memory, and indefatigable perseverance; but was totally devoid both of judgment and critical skill. He was likewise credulous in an absurd degree; and from an idea that he could solve any question, however difficult, he stated the wildest fictions, and arrived at the most ridiculous conclusions with undoubting faith and self-complacency.

The works of Kircher are very numerous. A complete list of them is given in Sepi's account of his museum, published at Amsterdam in 1678.

The most important of them are.—Ars Magneticae seu Conclusiones Experimentales de effectibus Magnetici, Wurtzburg, 1631, in 4to; Magneticae et Artes magneticae Opus tripartitum, Rome, 1641, in 4to; Ars magnetica Latinae Cabrae in x. libris digesta, Rome, 1645, 1646, in folio; Distrikt de magnetismo et crastina que non praedita per adeum incendium Veneti monitis Novaeol compendiis, Rome, 1681, in 8vo; Sermonum physicotheologicae contemplationis huius quae postea divisa, Rome, 1658, in 4to; Prodromus Copticus seu Egyptianus, in quo lingua Copta seu Egyptianus, quondam Pharaonicus, origo, usus, etc., exhibendus, Rome, 1696, in 4to; Linguae Egyptianae instituto, seu Institutiones grammaticales et Lexicon Copticum, Roma, 1644, in 4to; Codex Egyptianus, hoc est universalis Hieroglyphicorum veterum Doctrinae, temporum iurisacta absoluta, instaurata, Rome, 1652, in folio; Latium, id est nova et parallela Latii tum veteris tum novi Descriptio, Amsterd., 1671, in folio.

The most valuable of those works of Kircher's are those relating to the Coptic and Egyptian tongues, which, though now quite superseded, comprised all that was known on these points in his day; and his Latinum, which may even now be consulted with profit for its maps and plans, and its minute descriptions of many objects of great interest, such as Hadrian's Villa.