Mundus subterraneus in XII libros digestus (rist. anast. Amsterdam, 1678)

«Mundus Subterraneus», the most geological among Kircher's works, since 1665 attracts writers and chemists, artists and physicists, mathematicians and numerologists, philosophers and theologians. The book is still renown for containing some of the finest plates of the Earth's interior and views of spectacular eruptions of Mt. Vesuvius and Mt. Etna. Plato's Atlantis is represented as an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Kircher's water and fire cycles -with hydrophylacia (modern aquifers) and pyrophylacia (modern magma chambers)- are of great impact on modern readers. Furthermore, this is one of the first books also dealing with speleology. The polymath Jesuit of the Catholic reform was fascinated by the organic and vitalistic inner structure of the geocosmos designed by the Divine Architect. Kircher attempted to avoid the break up between science and philosophy (and religion), between new mechanical knowledge and teleology of creation.