Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:27:29.395Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Advertising cadavers in the republic of letters: anatomical publications in the early modern Netherlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2008

DÁNIEL MARGÓCSY
Affiliation:
Department of History of Science, Harvard University, Science Center 371, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Email: [email protected].

Abstract

This paper sketches how late seventeenth-century Dutch anatomists used printed publications to advertise their anatomical preparations, inventions and instructional technologies to an international clientele. It focuses on anatomists Frederik Ruysch (1638–1732) and Lodewijk de Bils (1624–69), inventors of two separate anatomical preparation methods for preserving cadavers and body parts in a lifelike state for decades or centuries. Ruysch's and de Bils's publications functioned as an ‘advertisement’ for their preparations. These printed volumes informed potential customers that anatomical preparations were aesthetically pleasing and scientifically important but did not divulge the trade secrets of the method of production. Thanks to this strategy of non-disclosure and advertisement, de Bils and Ruysch could create a well-working monopoly market of anatomical preparations. The ‘advertising’ rhetorics of anatomical publications highlight the potential dangers of equating the growth of print culture with the development of an open system of knowledge exchange.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 British Society for the History of Science

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, for instance, J. Lanzonius, Tractatus de balsamatione cadaverum, Parma, 1693.

2 The history of preservation has been somewhat neglected. See, however, H. Cook, ‘Time's bodies: crafting the preparation and preservation of naturalia’, in Merchants and Marvels: Commerce and Representation of Nature in Early Modern Europe (ed. P. Smith and P. Findlen), London, 2002, 223–47; L. Kooijmans, De doodskunstenaar, Amsterdam, 2004. See also Dannenfeldt, K. H., ‘Egyptian mumia: the sixteenth-century experience and debate’, Sixteenth Century Journal (1985), 16, 163–80CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; F. J. Cole, ‘The history of anatomical injections’, in Studies in the History and Methods of Science (ed. C. Singer), Oxford, 1921, 286–343. For a biography of de Bils see J. R. Jansma, Louis de Bils en de anatomie van zijn tijd, Hoogeveen, 1912; Fokker, A. A., ‘Louis de Bils en zijn tijd’, Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde (1865), 9, 167214.Google Scholar

3 L. de Bils, Kopye van zekere ampele acte van Jr. Louijs de Bils, Rotterdam, 1659. For a Latin version printed in the same year see idem, Exemplar fusioris Codicilli, Rotterdam, 1659. For the English version see idem, The Copy of a Certain Large Act – Obligatory – of Yonker Lovis de Bils, London, 1659.

4 De Bils, The Copy, op. cit. (3), 8.

5 De Bils, The Copy, op. cit. (3), 4.

6 De Bils, The Copy, op. cit. (3), 5. Idem, Waarachtig gebruik der tot noch toe gemeende gijlbuis beneffens de verrijzenis der lever, Rotterdam, 1658. A Latin version was also published: idem, Epistolica dissertatio, Rotterdam, 1659.

7 De Bils, The Copy, op. cit. (3).

8 For the contract between de Bils and Louvain see L. de Bils, ‘Ludivici de Bils actorum anatomicorum vera delineatio’, in Responsio ad epistolam Tobiae Andreae, Marburg, 1678, 13–15; M. de Haas, ‘Bossche scholen van 1629 tot 1795’, doctoral dissertation, Amsterdam, 1926, 129; G. A. Lindeboom, Geschiedenis van de medische wetenschap in Nederland, Bussum, 1972, 53.

9 De Haas, op. cit. (8), 130.

10 J. Farrington, An Account of a Journey Through Holland, Frizeland, etc. in Several Letters to a Friend (ed. P. G. Hoftijzer), Leiden, 1994, 50.

11 Z. C. von Uffenbach, Merkwürdige Reisen durch Niedersachsen, Holland und Engelland, Frankfurt, 1753–4, 621–2.

12 For examples of patronage by the Orange family on a limited scale, see N. M. Orenstein, Hendrick Hondius and the Business of Prints in Seventeenth-Century Holland, Rotterdam, 1996, 86–8. Arguably, the case of the Huygens family is a case in point; see B. Stoffele, ‘Christiaan Huygens – a family affair: fashioning a family in early modern court culture’, MA thesis, Utrecht, 2006.

13 K. van Berkel, ‘De illusies van Martinus Hortensius: Natuurwetenschap en patronage in de Republiek’, in Citaten uit het boek der natuur: Opstellen over Nederlandse wetenschapsgeschiedenis, Amsterdam, 1998, 63–85. The expression mercator sapiens comes from Caspar Barlaeus's inaugural speech at the establishment of the Amsterdam Athenaeum in 1632. C. Barlaeus, Mercator sapiens: oratie gehouden bij de inwijding van de Illustre School te Amsterdam op 9 januari 1632 (tr. and with introduction by S. van der Woude), Amsterdam, 1967. See also D. van Miert, Illuster onderwijs. Het Amsterdamse Athenaeum in de Gouden Eeuw, 1632–1704, Amsterdam, 2005.

14 On the support of start-up entrepreneurs in the Netherlands see C. A. Davids, ‘Beginning entrepreneurs and municipal governments in Holland at the time of the Dutch Republic’, in Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship in Early Modern Times: Merchants and Industrialists within the Orbit of the Dutch Staple Market (ed. C. Lesger and L. Noordegraaf), The Hague, 1995, 167–83.

15 H. Cook, Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine and Science in the Dutch Golden Age, New Haven, 2007. R. Kistemaker and E. Bergvelt (eds.), De Wereld binnen Handbereik: Nederlandse Kunst- en Rariteitenverzamelingen 1585–1735, Zwolle, 1992; Berkel, op. cit. (13).

16 R. van Gelder, Het Oost-Indisch avontuur: Duitsers in dienst van de VOC, Nijmegen, 1997; H. Cook, Medical Communication in the First Global Age: Willem ten Rhijne in Japan, 1674–1676, London, 2004. For further detail in a French context see L. E. Robbins, Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century Paris, Baltimore, 2002.

17 For similar claims about the Dutch book trade see P. G. Hoftijzer, Engelse Boekverkopers bij de Beurs: De Geschiedenis van de Amsterdamse Boekhandels Bruyning en Swart, 1637–1724, Amsterdam, 1987.

18 P. R. de Clercq, At the Sign of the Oriental Lamp: The Musschenbroek Workshop in Leiden, 1660–1750, Rotterdam, 1997, 119–22 and 197.

19 On the advertising function of many artisanal publications see Hilaire-Perez, L., ‘Technology as public culture in the eighteenth century: the artisan's legacy’, History of Science (2007), 45, 135–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Jones, C., ‘The great chain of buying: medical advertisement, the bourgeois public sphere and the origins of the French Revolution’, American Historical Review (1996), 101, 1340.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

20 For publications for patronage see M. Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism, Chicago, 1994; P. O. Long, Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Baltimore, 2001; M. Popplow, ‘Why draw pictures of machines: the social context of early modern machine drawings’, in Picturing Machines 1400–1700 (ed. W. Lefevre), Cambridge, MA., 2004, 17–48; D. McGee, ‘The origin of early modern machine design’, in ibid., 53–87.

21 L. Kooijmans, ‘Rachel Ruysch’, in Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland, 2004 (http://www.inghist.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/DVN/lemmata/data/Ruysch%20Rachel).

22 See A. Mirto and H. Th. van Veen, Pieter Blaeu: Letters to Florentines, Amsterdam, 1993; G. A. Lindeboom, Het Cabinet van Jan Swammerdam, Amsterdam, 1980; and idem, The Letters of Jan Swammerdam to Melchisedec Thévenot, Amsterdam, 1975, 72–3.

23 van Heel, S. A. C. Dudok, ‘Ruim honderd advertenties van kunstverkopingen uit de Amsterdamsche Courant, 1712–1725’, Jaarboek van het Genootschap Amstelodamum (1977), 69, 107–22.Google Scholar For natural-historical sales see 17 September 1715, ‘een uytmuntent Cabinet van alle soorten van fraye Zeegewassen en veel andere Rariteyten meer’; 1 February 1720, ‘3 beeltjes, konstig uyt een stuk Palmhout gesneden, eenige Hoorns en Schelpen, de geboort Christi konstig geschildert, een klein Breughels’; 4 May 1724, a ‘curieuse Kabinette met Hoorns, Schulpen en Zeegewassen, Flessen met vreemde gediertens in Liquor, dozen met insectens, groot goed etc., kostelyke Schilderyen van brave Meesters, 2 Marmere Beeldjes verbeeldende de 5 zinnen, etc. door Quellinus’.

24 At the late burgomaster Gerbrand Pancras's collections sale “2 stuks extra van Juffrouw Ruys” are mentioned (10 March 1716), Dudok van Heel, op. cit. (23). On 21 February 1719 the late Jacob van Hoek's collection was advertised for sale by H. Sorg (the painter Hendrick Sorgh), including a painting by Rachel Ruysch. Together with the same Sorg and a certain P. Steen, Frederik Ruysch Pool arranged for the sale of the late Cornelis Nuyts's collection of paintings, as can be seen in an advertisement from 8 March 1718.

25 Bisseling, C. H., ‘Uit de Amsterdamse Courant, 1695, no. 84, 1720, no. 36’, Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde (1921), 65, 3113.Google Scholar

26 Amsterdamsche Courant, 25 September 1731. By 1771 the sale of such collections became such a public event that a catalogue of the sale of Gerrit Braamcamp's collection of paintings was sold in almost one thousand copies, only to be pirated by another bookseller, and to be thereafter followed by a new edition at a reduced price from the original publishers. See G. Braamcamp, Catalogus van het uytmuntend Cabinet, Amsterdam, 1771; C. Bille, De tempel der kunst, of, Het kabinet van den heer Braamcamp, 2 vols., Amsterdam, 1961.

27 De Clercq, op. cit. (18), 65–71. For similar moves in the English market, some of which pre-date the Dutch evidence, see Crawforth, M. A., ‘Evidence from trade cards for the scientific instrument industry’, Annals of Science (1985), 42, 453–544CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Bryden, D. J., ‘Evidence from advertising for mathematical instrument making in London, 1556–1714’, Annals of Science (1992), 49, 301–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On advertising in the British medical scene see H. Cook, The Decline of the Old Medical Regime in Stuart London, Ithaca, NY, 1986. For eighteenth-century developments see M. Ratcliff, ‘Europe and the microscope in the Enlightenment’, Ph.D. dissertation, London, 2001.

28 The Russian court also ordered air pumps with the help of Musschenbroek's catalogues (as well as illustrations in 's Gravesande's works) and relied mostly on long-distance correspondence to arrange matters, including getting positive references from 's Gravesande for Musschenbroek's work and receiving instructions for the assembly of the pump. Daniel Schumacher to Albertus Seba, St Petersburg, 23 June 1718, Archives of the St Petersburg branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (subsequently RAS Archives), Fond I Opis 3 Dela 2 f. 95; Daniel Schumacher to Johann Musschenbroek, 14 March 1724, RAS Archives, Fond I Opis 3 Dela 2 f. 197; Daniel Schumacher to [Johann Musschenbroek], 9 March 1726, RAS Archives, Fond I Opis 3 Dela 2 f. 332; 's Gravesande to Daniel Schumacher, 23 August 1724, RAS Archives, Fond I Opis 3 Dela 8 f. 153; Johann van Musschenbroek to Daniel Schumacher, 1724, RAS Archives, Fond I Opis 3 Dela 8 f. 289.

29 S. Blankaart, Anatomia reformata, 3rd edn, Leiden, 1695, Verhandeling wegens het balsemen der menschelyke Lighamen, art. XXVI.

30 S. Blankaart, Verhandelinge van het podagra, Amsterdam, 1684, 294–301. See also J. Banga, Geschiedenis van de geneeskunde en van hare beoefenaren in Nederland (ed. G. A. Lindeboom), Schiedam, 1975, 621–2. For a discussion of secrets in the English scene see M. Pelling, Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London: Patronage, Physicians, and Irregular Practitioners 1550–1640, Oxford, 2003; and Cook, op. cit. (27). For the French scene see C. S. Le Paulmier, L'Orviétan: Histoire d'une famille de charlatans du Pont-Neuf aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Paris, 1893.

31 On Van der Heyden see P. C. Sutton, Jan van der Heyden: 1637–1712, New Haven, 2006; L. de Vries, Jan van der Heyden, Amsterdam, 1984. The fire-fighting side of Van der Heyden is analysed in J. van der Heyden, A Description of Fire Engines with Water Hoses and the Method of Fighting Fires now used in Amsterdam (tr. and with introduction by L. Stibbe Multhauf), Canton, 1996. See also the slightly different case of Cornelius Meijer in K. van Berkel, ‘“Cornelius Meijer inventor et fecit:” on the representation of science in late seventeenth-century Rome’, in Merchants and Marvels: Commerce and Representation of Nature in Early Modern Europe (ed. P. Smith and P. Findlen), London, 2002, 277–96.

32 S. Shapin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life, Princeton, 1985; Shapin, S., ‘Pump and circumstance: Robert Boyle's literary technology’, Social Studies of Science (1984), 14, 481520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Dear, P., ‘Totius in Verba: rhetoric and authority in the early Royal Society’, Isis (1985), 76, 144–61Google Scholar; Licoppe, C., ‘The crystallization of a new narrative form in experimental reports (1660–1690): the experimental evidence as a transaction between philosophical knowledge and aristocratic power’, Science in Context (1994), 7, 205–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P. Dear, Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution, Chicago, 1995.

33 Braudel traces the history of shop windows to 1728, when they appeared in London. F. Braudel, The Wheels of Commerce (Civilization and Capitalism: 15th–18th Century Vol. II), London, 1981, 68, citing a French visitor: ‘What we do not on the whole have in France, is glass like this, generally very fine and very clear. The shops are surrounded with it and usually the merchandise is arranged behind it, which keeps the dust off, while still displaying the goods to passers-by, presenting a fine sight from every direction.’ [P.-J. Fougeroux], Voiage d'Angleterre, d'Hollande et de Flandre, 1728, Victoria and Albert Museum, 86 NN 2, f. 29.

34 The sale in England might have come about because William of Orange also brought several Dutch fire engines to England as part of his Glorious Revolution. Van der Heyden, op. cit. (31); Lindeboom, Letters of Jan Swammerdam, op. cit. (22), 12–13.

35 The work of Frederik Ruysch has recently gained much interest. Works with appeal to the larger public, e.g. P. Blom's To Have and to Hold, Woodstock, 2002; or R. Wolff Purcell and S. J. Gould, Finders, Keepers, New York, 1992, feature informative articles on Ruysch's collection. The best biography until recently was P. Scheltema, Het leven van Frederik Ruysch, Sliedrecht, 1886; but Kooijmans, op. cit. (2), has raised the standard much higher, with a keen eye to issues of secrecy, priority debates and preservation methods, though he pays somewhat less attention to the marketing strategies of Ruysch. An English biography can be found in M. Berardi, ‘Science into art: Rachel Ruysch's early development as a still-life painter’, Ph.D dissertation, Pittsburgh, 1998, AAT 9837555. See also A. M. Luyendijk-Elshout, ‘“An der Klaue erkennt man den Löwen,” aus den Sammlungen des Frederik Ruysch’, in Macrocosmos in Microcosmo, die Welt in der Stube: zur Geschichte des Sammelns, 1450 bis 1800 (ed. A. Grote), Opladen, 1994, 643–60; J. V. Hansen, ‘Galleries of life and death: the anatomy lesson in Dutch art, 1603–1773’, Ph.D dissertation, Stanford, 1996, AAT 9702901; and idem, ‘Resurrecting death: anatomical art in the cabinet of Dr. Frederik Ruysch’, Art Bulletin (1996), 78, 663–79.

36 B. le Bovier de Fontenelle, ‘Eloge de Monsieur Ruysch’, in idem, Historie de l'Académie royale des sciences, 4 vols., Paris, 1785, iv, 196.

37 Jan Swammerdam to Melchisédec Thévenot, 1671, in Lindeboom, Letters of Jan Swammerdam, op. cit. (22), 63. I owe this reference to Eric Jorink.

38 On the cultures of museums, collecting and curiosities see L. Daston and K. Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, New York, 1995; O. Impey and A. Macgregor (eds.), The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europe, Oxford, 1985; K. Pomian, Collectors and Curiosities: Paris and Venice, 1500–1800, Cambridge, 1990; A. Schnapper, Collections et collectionneurs dans la France du XVIIe siècle, 2 vols., Paris, 1988–94; P. Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy, Berkeley, 1994; P. Smith and P. Findlen (eds.), Merchants and Marvels: Commerce and Representation of Nature in Early Modern Europe, London, 2002; Kistemaker and Bergvelt, op. cit. (15).

39 The expression occurs very frequently throughout Ruysch's works; see for instance his description of the face of a young child: ‘Aangesichte zeer schoon, wel besneden en levendig van couleur is.’ F. Ruysch, Thesaurus IV, Amsterdam, 1701–7, 9. Unless otherwise specified, I am quoting Ruysch's works from his Opera omnia anatomico-medico-chirurgica, 4 vols., Amsterdam, 1721–7.

40 On the wide variety of visitors see the partially surviving guest books preserved at the library of the University of Amsterdam. Frederik Ruysch, Album Frederik Ruysch, UBA MS IE 20 and 21.

41 F. Ruysch, Observationum anatomico-chirurgiarum centuria et Catalogus rariorum, Amsterdam, 1691.

42 On the concept of paratexts see G. Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, Cambridge, 1997.

43 Ruysch, Thesaurus IV, 24. See also F. Ruysch, Thesaurus V, Amsterdam, 1701–7, 5.

44 See also S. Dúzs, ‘Hogyan utazott 170 évvel ezelőtt a magyar calvinista candidatus’, Debreceni Protestáns Lap (1884), 44–59. Kooijmans, op. cit. (2), claims that medical professionals could enter free of charge, but other visitors had to pay an entrance fee. On advertisements, and how Ruysch used them in advertising his public anatomical dissections, see W. S. Hecksher, Rembrandt's Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaas Tulp: An Iconological Study, New York, 1958.

45 M. B. Valentini, Musaeum musaeorum, oder vollständige SchauBühne aller Materialien und Specereyen, Frankfurt, 1714, 2, Appendix XIIX, 59–61. For instance, Johann Conrad Rassel's collection in Halberstadt had opening hours every Tuesday and Friday between two and four o'clock for local visitors, and had open doors for travellers passing through the country each day of the week. Valentini, op. cit., Appendix XIX, 61–9.

46 J. Driessen-van het Reve, De Kunstkamera van Peter de Grote: De Hollandse inbreng, gereconstrueerd uit brieven van Albert Seba en Johann Daniel Schumacher uit de jaren 1711–1752, Hilversum, 2006, 130–2.

47 F. Ruysch, Thesaurus IV, 45. William III of England wore a black ribbon that attached to his left arm a golden bag filled with the hair of his deceased wife, Queen Mary, as his first surgeon noticed during the king's dissection. M. Ronjat, Lettre de Mr. Ronjat, Ecrite de Londres à un Medecin de ses amis en Hollande, London, 1703, 25.

48 F. Ruysch, Thesaurus IV, 45. The embalming of hearts was a fairly common procedure in early modern royal funerals.

49 R. Kistemaker et al. (eds.), Peter de Grote en Holland: Culturele en wetenschappelijke betrekkingen tussen Rusland en Nederland ten tijde van tsaar Peter de Grote, Amsterdam, 1997, 183.

50 van het Meurs, L. L., ‘Het leven van den beroemden F. Ruysch’, Algemeen Magazijn Historiekunde (1785), 3, 447–88, 469.Google Scholar

51 F. Ruysch, Thesaurus VI, Amsterdam, 1701–7, ad lectorem.

52 One ducaton was worth five guilders and three stuivers. A university professor usually had an official income between one thousand and two thousand guilders per annum. Uffenbach, op. cit. (11), 3, 639–40.

53 E.g. F. Ruysch, Thesaurus II, Amsterdam, 1701–7, 16, where a “phiala continens duas portiones Penis Virilis” was exhibited.

54 F. Ruysch, Epistola tertia ad Gaubium, 23, in idem, Opera omnia, op. cit. (39).

55 ‘Proinde facile, ut spero, connivebit Dominus, quod voto tuo respondere, Scrotique praeparationem supra citatam publice notam facere nondum induci possim, neque, ut mihi persuadeo, id a me exiges, cum mecum perpendas, quam multi dentur, qui instar Corniculae Aesopicae alienis superbire gaudeant plumis. Accuratam autem delineationem arteriarum anterioris partis Scroti Tibi denegare nequeo, quam tabulae secundae Figura secunda repraesentat.’ F. Ruysch, Epistola secunda ad Gaubium, 17, in idem, Opera omnia, op. cit. (39).

56 Driessen, op. cit. (46). The following section is heavily based on Driessen's findings.

57 J. Knoppers, ‘The visits of Peter the Great to the United Provinces in 1697–98 and 1716–17 as seen in light of the Dutch sources’, MA thesis, Montreal University, 1969.

58 Driessen, op. cit. (46), 136.

59 Driessen, op. cit. (46), 86–103.

60 Driessen, op. cit. (46), 107–17.

61 Driessen, op. cit. (46), 131–2.

62 Ruysch recalled that Peter once called him ‘his teacher’, and thereby immediately inverted the usual patronage relationship.

63 A. Radzjoen, ‘De anatomische collectie van Frederik Ruysch in Sint-Petersburg’, in Kistemaker et al., op. cit. (49), 47–54, 51.

64 Gemeentearchief Amsterdam 5075, Notarial Archives Abraham Tzeewen, inv. 7598, 17 April 1717; Driessen, op. cit. (46), 139–40.

65 Gemeentearchief Amsterdam 5075, Notarial Archives Abraham Tzeewen, inv. 7598, April 23, 1717; Driessen, op. cit. (46), 141–2.

66 For a statistical analysis of the price of anatomical preparations see D. Margócsy, ‘Disposable tools: the epistemological role of cheap anatomical preparates in the Netherlands, c. 1700’, paper given at the 26th Symposium of Scientific Instruments Commission, 2007.

67 Gemeentearchief Amsterdam 5075, Notarial Archives Abraham Tzeewen, inv. 7648, 28 December 1730.

68 For recent analyses of the various publication strategies of particular early modern authors see Ratcliff, M., ‘Abraham Trembley's strategy of generosity and the scope of celebrity in the mid-eighteenth century’, Isis (2004), 95, 555–75CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and Biagioli, M., ‘Replication or monopoly? The economics of invention and discovery in Galileo's Observations of 1610’, Science in Context (2000), 13, 547–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 For the traditional view on the development of the public sphere see J. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Cambridge, MA, 1989; and T. C. W. Blanning, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture, Oxford, 2002. For more qualified approaches see, for instance, D. Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment, Ithaca, NY, 1994. For the development of communication networks in seventeenth-century science see P. N. Miller, Peiresc's Europe: Learning and Virtue in the Seventeenth Century, New Haven, 2000. On the emergence of scientific societies and academies see J. E. McClellan, Science Reorganized: Scientific Societies in the Eighteenth Century, New York, 1985; R. Hahn, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666–1803, Berkeley, 1971; D. S. Lux, Patronage and Royal Science in Seventeenth-Century France: The Académie de Physique in Caen, Ithaca, NY, 1989; Gordin, M. D., ‘The importation of being earnest: the early St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences’, Isis (2000), 91, 131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the scientific book trade see M. Frasca-Spada and N. Jardine (eds.), Books and the Sciences in History, Cambridge, 2000.

70 J. Mokyr, The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy, Princeton, 2002; idem, ‘The intellectual origins of modern economic growth’, Journal of Economic History (2005), 55, 285–351; P. David, ‘From keeping “Nature's Secrets” to the institutionalization of “Open Science”’, University of Oxford Discussion Papers in Economic and Social History, 2001; Davids, K., ‘Public knowledge and common secrets: secrecy and its limits in the early modern Netherlands’, Early Science and Medicine (2005), 10, 411–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, ‘Openness or secrecy? Industrial espionage in the Dutch Republic’, Journal of European Economic History (1995), 23, 333–74. See also M. Berg (ed.), Special Issue: Reflection on Joel Mokyr's The Gifts of Athena, History of Science (2007), 45. Work on the social and rhetorical structures that underlie claims of openness and public science includes, among many others, Shapin and Schaffer, op. cit. (32); J. Golinski, Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760–1820, Cambridge, 1992; L. Stewart, The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology, and Natural Philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660–1750, Cambridge, 1992.

71 R. K. Merton, ‘The reward system of science’, in On Social Structure and Science (ed. P. Sztompka), Chicago, 1996, 286–304.

72 H. Bots and F. Waquet, La République des lettres, Paris, 1997; A. Goldgar, Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters, 1680–1750, New Haven, 1995; Daston, L., ‘The ideal and the reality of the Republic of Letters in the Enlightenment’, Science in Context (1991), 4, 367–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Broman, T., ‘The Habermasian public sphere and science in the Enlightenment’, History of Science (1998), 36, 123–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 Mokyr, J., ‘The market for ideas and the origins of economic growth in eighteenth century Europe’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis (2007), 4, 139Google Scholar; idem, ‘Knowledge, enlightenment, and the industrial revolution: reflections on The Gifts of Athena’, History of Science (2007), 45, 185–96.

74 See Biagioli, op. cit. (20); D. Freedberg, The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History, Chicago, 2002; Findlen, op. cit. (38); B. T. Moran, Patronage and Institutions: Science, Technology, and Medicine at the European Court, 1500–1750, Rochester, 1991; Pumphrey, S., ‘Science and patronage in England, 1570–1625: a preliminary study’, History of Science (2004), 42, 137–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75 On print culture's instability see A. Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, Chicago, 1998. Tacit knowledge and its bodily function is emphasized in P. H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution, Chicago, 2004; see also M. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-critical Philosophy, Chicago, 1974.

76 Gemeentearchief Amsterdam 5075, Notarial Archives Abraham Tzeewen, inv. 7598, 17 April 1717.