High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Athanasius Kircher, S.J., (1601 or 1602–1680) (sometimes erroneously spelled Kirchner) was a 17th-century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his enormous range of interests, including discovering works and has been honoured with the title "master of a hundred arts". A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades. The first general-interest biography of Kircher is titled, A Man of Misconceptions: The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change, by John Glassie.