KB
Kungliga biblioteket.
KVHAA
Henrik Schuck.
Kgl. Vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademien. Dess forhistoria och historia.
Vols. I–IV. Stockholm, 1932–1935.
LUB
Lunds universitetsbibliotek.
RA
Riksarkivet.
RS
Royal Society.
ULA
Uppsala landsarkiv.
UUA
Uppsala universitets arskrift.
UUB
Uppsala universitetsbibliotek.
UUH
Claes Annerstedt.
Uppsala universitets historia.
Vols. I–III. Uppsala, 1877–1914.
For readers wanting to know more about Olof Rudbeck’s life, Gunnar Eriksson has written an excellent scholarly biography, Rudbeck 1630–1702: Liv, lardom, drom i barockens Sverige (2002). Its balanced analysis and rigorous treatment make the book a landmark study, and I only wish it had been available for me during the first seven years of my work. Eriksson’s Atlantic Vision (1994) is also of great importance; special thanks to Eriksson for giving me a copy back in 1995, when I first started to be fascinated with this subject. Claes Annerstedt’s Bref is a gold mine of information, both for its collection of primary documents and for Annerstedt’s insightful commentaries. Annerstedt’s history of Uppsala University, UUH, was also helpful, as was P. D. A. Atterbom’s overview of Rudbeck’s achievements, Minne af professoren i medicinen vid Uppsala universitet Olof Rudbeck den aldre (1850–51). Henrik Schuck’s history of Swedish antiquities, KVHAA, and Sten Lindroth’s Svensk lardomshistoria. Stormaktstiden (1975) were likewise as indispensable to my work as they were inspiring in their scholarly expertise.
Among the many other secondary sources that have helped me understand Olof Rudbeck are Nordstrom’s De yverbornes o. Bidrag till Atlanticans forhistoria (1930), Strindberg’s Bondenod och stormaktsdrom. Studier over skedet 1630–1718 (1937), Nelson’s commentaries to the latest edition of the Atlantica (1937–50), Johannes Rudbeckius’s Bibliotheca Rudbeckiana (1918), and Per Dahl’s dissertation, Svensk ingenjorskonst under stormaktstiden: Olof Rudbecks tekniska undervisning och praktiskaverksamhet (1995). Michael Roberts, David Kirby, John Greenway, Eli Heckscher, Ingvar Andersson, Kurt Johannesson, Peter Englund, and Gunnar Broberg are also outstanding. It was John Greenway’s provocative discussion of seventeenth- century Sweden that first caught my interest in Olof Rudbeck’s search: Golden Horns: Mythic Imagination and the Nordic Past (1977), 71–82.
In addition to Atlantica I–IV and its accompanying Atlas volume, the present work draws on a number of primary sources housed in Scandinavian archives. The National Library (also known as the Royal Library) in Stockholm has Rudbeck’s own handwritten notes about the early history of Sweden, as well as a copy of his maps with notes in his own writing (Atland tabulae med anteckningar av O Rudbecks hand F.m.73). Some of Rudbeck’s other miscellaneous notes, including library loans, are found in Olaus Rudbecks autografsamlingen and Olof Rudbeck den aldre collectanea (F.e.16). The Swedish Riksarkivet (National Archives) has many of Rudbeck’s letters in the De la Gardie collection, especially the material relating to Uppsala University (Kanslers embetets handlingar for Uppsala universitet Arkiv E.11:5–E. 11:8). The Swedish National Archives also has Rudbeck’s letters to King Charles XI (Karl XI) and the Regency Government (6459.52, vol. 14; 1133.10, vol. 32), as well as his letters to other prominent Swedes.
Uppsala University has a wonderful survival of Rudbeck’s quest—one of his own notebooks, found in Olof Rudbecks collectanea (R 13)—and material, too, on various aspects of Rudbeck’s life: Olof Rudbeck d.a. (X 240), Rudbecks biografi (X 208), as well as Bibliographia Sveo-Gothica XV Palmskold samlingen 344, Virorum illustrium Suec. litterae No. XVI litterae Palmsk. samlingen 370 (W 848). Rudbeck’s handwritten notes on many other matters, ranging from old runes (R 551) to astronomy, including observations of comets (A 312), are also here. Claes Annerstedt donated his notes about the history of Uppsala University (for Rudbeck, see especially U40:4, U40:5, U40:6, and U40:63). Lund University also had a sizable collection of Rudbeck’s original letters to Chancellor de la Gardie in the De la Gardiska slaktarkiven: Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie (93:1). Some of Rudbeck’s other letters, particularly from later in his life, are found at Uppsala lands arkiv (Lansstyrelsen i Uppsala lan. Landskansliet biographica I. D.IV.A, 63 and 64, as well as Landskansliet skrivelser fran akademiska konsistoriet och rektorsambetet D III 1). The Royal Society in London has preserved copies of its letters to Rudbeck (LBC 3.253, LBC 4.386, LBC 4.49), his letters to them (LBC. 8.273), and the actual copy of Atlantica sent to the society in the autumn of 1681.
A note on Swedish spelling: I have not changed or modernized Rudbeck’s words. Also, some words appearing in his etymologies no longer exist in modern Swedish.
INTRODUCTION
The Uppsala fire is described in many sources, particularly Eenberg’s En utforlig relation om den grufweliga eldzwada och skada, som sig tildrog med Uppsala stad den 16 Maii, ahr 1702 (1703), published when the city was still in ruins. Eenberg reports the especially dry spring that year (6–7), the chaos prevailing as the fire erupted (16–17), the damage to the cathedral (27ff.), and the devastation afterwards. Two of Rudbeck’s letters to Chancellor Bengt Oxenstierna reveal his own perspective on the catastrophe; both are often cited as valuable eyewitness reports (17 May 1702 and 26 May 1702, published in Annerstedt’s Bref IV, 387–90). The image of fire raining from the heavens comes from the first letter, as does Rudbeck’s other personal contributions, such as loaning his horses to neighbors.
Eenberg also notes how much Rudbeck suffered from the fire, including the loss of his house and the works he had kept in the cathedral (24, 31, 41). The legend of Rudbeck climbing atop a burning building is found in many of the older secondary accounts, including Atterbom (1851), 115–17. The literal accuracy is questioned by Annerstedt, Bref IV, cclxxviii–cclxxix, commenting on its absence from the oldest accounts, though he notes the well-known oral tradition of Rudbeck’s action and comments on how it is not contradicted by known facts. This uncertainty is why I have used the word legend.
Rudbeck’s words on so many “unbelievable” findings come from his letter to Count Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie, 28 December 1674, Bref II, 98–99. The rapid pace of the discoveries was still surprising Rudbeck, with the words about uncovering “unbelievable things” found in a letter dated 3 December 1676 (RA, Kanslers embetets handlingar for Uppsala universitet arkiv E.11:5). Deep into the project at this point, the discoveries were coming so quickly that he hoped to publish a “small addition” or “another book.” See Rudbeck’s own words, for instance, in Atl. I, 408, or Atl. I, 428, and the phrase itself, Atl. II, 15. At about this point in the printing of the first volume, the references to future continuations become more and more frequent (Atl. I, 458, 460, 476, 490).
The phrase “oracle of the north,” one of the many ways readers praised Rudbeck’s contributions, comes from
