Whenever anyone cited a passage, she could usually name its exact location, chapter and verse.
Malin Rudbeckius was actually the bishop’s second wife; he had married her in 1620 after his first wife died. She was quite young, some twenty-two years younger than her husband, making Rudbeck’s mother—eighteen at the time of the wedding—one of the youngest women in Swedish history to be the wife of a bishop. It is hard to believe she gave birth to eleven children in only twelve years. Rudbeck was the ninth in the family, and particularly close, it seems, to his mother. Cheerful and merry, with a good sense of humor, she was the “glittering sunshine” of Olof Rudbeck’s childhood.
Some of Rudbeck’s most pleasant memories of his youth probably involved the garden. The bishop was an avid horticulturist, enjoying his summer expeditions into the countryside hunting for wildflowers, and handling each delicate petal with an awe worthy of God’s creation. Rudbeck’s father planted the rosebushes and fruit trees at Vasteras high school, and created Sweden’s first teaching garden. It was probably his father’s passion that sparked Rudbeck’s interest in the world of flowers.
Despite the many differences, there is no doubt that Rudbeck loved and respected his parents. Sadly, both passed away too soon, his father dying in 1646, and his mother following three years later. Rudbeck lost his first guardians, teachers, and champions. Neither parent lived to see their son’s triumph, let alone the spectacular discoveries that lay ahead.
2
ORACLE OF THE NORTH
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Once in the town of cobbled lanes and misty canals, Rudbeck allowed his imagination to roam freely. He studied anatomy under the leading authorities, Professors Johannes van Horne and Johannes Antonides van der Linden, admiring the university’s relaxed atmosphere. Leiden’s medical school was remarkably independent of the clergy, the theology department, and the state. What was unthinkable in Sweden regularly happened in Leiden. In the infamous anatomy theater,
Rudbeck was soaking up this atmosphere, eager to experience everything that the town had to offer. Even a stroll by the docks could prove instructive. He tended to act on impulse, and became quickly absorbed in new interests. Holland’s long history of fighting to reclaim the land from the sea had given its people talents for constructing all sorts of technical devices, from waterworks to windmills. Feats of Dutch engineering, such as sluices, harbor cranes, and timber saws, thoroughly impressed the visiting Swede.
There was another place Rudbeck came to enjoy: Leiden’s famous botanical garden, founded in 1587 and full of a bewildering variety of rare and exotic plants brought back from Dutch voyages to the East and West Indies. Rudbeck had never seen many of these flowers before. The tulip, for instance, was the reigning “monarch of flowers.” Brought from the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, its slender stocks exploded into flaming scarlet twirls streaked with the purest white—just one of the seemingly unlimited number of variations that delighted the senses.
In this splendid half-acre retreat, the sweet scents overpowered the stench of the canals, and Rudbeck could hardly contain his excitement. He was learning about new flowers, their ideal growing conditions, and their many uses everywhere from the kitchen to the apothecary. He could also hardly avoid thinking of his father, and how he had lovingly collected flowers for his small teaching garden at Vasteras. How Rudbeck must have yearned to share his experience in Leiden among the many beautiful and curious new plants brought back from the other side of the world.
As his stay was winding down, Rudbeck’s anatomical discoveries, and a dispute with an esteemed Danish professor who claimed to have discovered the lymphatic system first, had made his name famous throughout Europe. It seemed that everyone wanted a piece of the promising star, and offers of employment poured in from many places. He was offered the position of field surgeon with the Swedish army, and the prestigious post of city physician in Stockholm, at the heart of the empire. Also, a prominent Swedish count wanted to hire Rudbeck to be his personal engineer, while the Dutch tried to persuade him to stay in the Netherlands. Even the French ambassador approached Rudbeck with a tempting offer to serve the king of France. At only twenty-three years of age, the world beckoned for Olof Rudbeck. But he politely declined the kind offers. For now, he could think of nothing he would rather do than return to Sweden and cultivate a botanical garden of his own.
HAVING ARRANGED FOR some eight hundred new seeds and bulbs to be shipped back from the Netherlands, Rudbeck was ready for what he had come to regard as the “most sweet and innocent” of human pursuits. All he needed was a plot of land. And this brought him in touch with an old acquaintance, Mrs. Helena Gustafsdotter Lohrman.
Five years earlier, when Rudbeck first came to Uppsala, he had rented a room from Mrs. Lohrman, the wife of Uppsala’s mayor, Thomas Lohrman. Not much is known about her other than that she was one of Rudbeck’s early and most significant admirers. When Rudbeck’s mother died in 1649, it was Mrs. Lohrman who generously came to his aid. Rudbeck’s small family inheritance was divided among the many children, and his share was soon gone. Mrs. Lohrman made it possible for Rudbeck to stay in school. It is likely that in return he tutored the Lohrman children, including their precious daughter, Vendela.
Now that Rudbeck was back in town with his bags of seeds, Mrs. Lohrman offered him a small patch of land on the cen-tral Svartbacksgatan for his garden. There Rudbeck went to work, preparing the beds, scattering the seeds, and, with characteristic vigor, waging war on the weeds. He was also waiting for his professorship, which Queen Christina had earlier offered him.
The problem was, however, that Queen Christina was no longer in a position to make good on her promise. Since Rudbeck’s dissection at the castle, Queen Christina had stunned the world, this time even more than usual. She had converted to Catholicism, renounced the Swedish throne, and moved to Rome, where she allegedly rode into town dressed as an Amazon warrior.
With the queen’s abdication went the generous patronage, the lively court, and, unfortunately for Rudbeck, the many influential courtiers who had known and admired his talents. And so Rudbeck worked and waited, already showing signs of his almost inexhaustible optimism. He passed the time tending to his plants and looking for new specimens for his ever-expanding garden, which he fondly called his “firstborn son.”
Rudbeck’s garden was laid out, like many gardens of the day, in a geometrical pattern, with classical Ionic columns adorning the outer wall. A central gate marked its entrance, and immediately ahead sprinkled the cool waters of a small fountain. Regular, straight lanes divided the garden into symmetrical, boxlike flower beds splashed with shades of amber yellow, bloodred, pure white, and soft orange.
Tradition has it that something else was blossoming in Rudbeck’s fragrant garden. Rudbeck had known Mrs. Lohrman’s daughter, Vendela, for quite a while now, though probably not all that well, as she was only eleven years old when they first met. But now, seven years later, Rudbeck saw a beautiful and refined lady. Mrs. Lohrman had taken up the habit of strolling in the garden, and to Rudbeck’s delight, Vendela accompanied her mother more and more frequently. Perhaps it was here along the perfumed pathways, lined with roses, carnations, and lilies all blooming in their seasons that the two fell in love. With the help of Vendela and his garden, Rudbeck was conquering what could very well have been a long, lonely year of uncertainty.
In the late spring of 1655, Rudbeck was finally offered a position in the medical faculty at Uppsala University. It was only part time and adjunct, and much humbler than any of the offers he had received in the Netherlands, but he was glad nonetheless. Indeed, on the very day of his appointment, Midsummer Eve, Rudbeck married Vendela Lohrman.
