MALTA, 2002, Scott 1094
Athanasius Kircher was born 2 May 1602 (or 1601) at Geisa, on the Upper Rhone in Germany. In 1618 he entered the Jesuits at Paderborn, and became professor of mathematics at the Roman College, where he spent the rest of his life. The complete polymath, Kircher worked on the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics, ancient and universal languages, volcanoes, earthquakes and the fundamentals of geoscience, archeology, the collection of antiquities into his Museum Kircherianum — still worth a visit today — and much else. More