Musaeum Tradescantianum
Tradescant divided the exhibits into natural objects (naturalia) and manmade objects (artificialia). The first account of the collection, by Peter Mundy, is from 1634. After the death of the younger Tradescant and his wife, the collection passed into the hands of the wealthy collector Elias Ashmole, who in 1691 gave it to Oxford University as the nucleus of the newly founded Ashmolean Museum.
The Tradescant collection is the earliest major English cabinet of curiosities. Other famous collections in Europe preceded it, for example Emperor Rudolf II's Kunst- und Wunderkammer was well established at Prague by the end of the 16th century. In 2015 the Garden Museum received a £3.5 million Heritage Lottery grant to recreate a part of the original Ark with loans from the Ashmolean Museum