Engelbrecht Kempfer’s letter to Rudbeck, 20 February 1683, printed in Auctarium testimoniorum de Cl. Rudbeckii Atlantica (1685), reprinted in Nelson’s edition of Atl. IV (1950), 48. Isaac Newton’s letter requesting Rudbeck’s Atlantica was published by A. R. Hall in “Further Newton Correspondence,” Notes and Queries 37 (1982).
The conflicts Rudbeck faced in the course of his search were enormous. Strindberg reads Rudbeck’s Atlantis theories as a “romantic compensation” for his struggles and misery, Bondenod och stormaktsdrom (1937), 246ff. One reason for the lack of general knowledge about Rudbeck outside Sweden is the fact that Atlantica has never been translated into English, German, French, or any language besides Latin. Moreover, there are surprisingly few accounts about Olof Rudbeck in languages other than Scandinavian, and works in English are especially few. Apart from a couple of short studies in academic journals, Eriksson analyzes Rudbeck’s methods as an experimental natural philosopher in his scholarly Atlantic Vision (1994), and John Greenway treats him in the context of the various images of the Nordic past in his Golden Horns (1977), 77–82.
Sten Lindroth notes that few printers dared to publish a work of over six or seven printer sheets in length (Stormaktstiden, 73–74), Atlantica, by contrast, with almost 900 pages on some 225 printer sheets, was a massive undertaking.
CHAPTER 1: PROMISES
Information about the intellectual and social environment of Uppsala University in the middle of the seventeenth century is found in Rudbeck’s letters about Uppsala University, printed in Annerstedt, Bref I, xxvii ff. and Annerstedt’s UUH I, 378–80; II, 101ff; III, 335; in Lindroth’s Uppsala universitet 1477–1977 (1976), 41–44; and in Lindroth’s sweep of Swedish history of science, Stormaktstiden, especially volume III, 19–21, 38ff. The selected pages discuss Gustavus Adolphus’s contributions to the university, as well as document the riotous student life that flourished at the time.
When Rudbeck arrived at Uppsala in February 1648, rumors of the peace ending the Thirty Years’ War had been circulating for some time. They were soon confirmed when the first of many treaties, collectively known as the Peace of Westphalia, was signed in the fall of that year. The phrase “drunk with victory and bloated with booty” comes from Michael Roberts, Essays in Swedish History (1966), 233. Rudbeck’s youth, including his attempts to follow his older brothers to Uppsala, is described in many sources, though see especially Eriksson (2002), 17–32. Another valuable discussion is K. W. Herdin’s “Olof Rudbeck d.a:s fodelse och tidigare ungdom,” in the collection of scholarly articles published on the three hundredth anniversary of Rudbeck’s birth, Rudbecksstudier: Festskrift vid Uppsala universitets minnesfest till hogtidlighallande av 300-Arsminnet av Olof Rudbeck d.a:s fodelse (1930).
Even though disciplines were not rigidly fixed, and polymaths moved relatively freely among them, few would argue that Uppsala’s medical school in the 1650s was the best place for Rudbeck’s work. His first teacher, Professor Johannes Franckenius, was busy in the alchemy lab (Lindroth, Stormaktstiden, 176–77). Rudbeck’s work under him is discussed in Eriksson (2002), 46–47, and Lindroth, 416. Another one of Rudbeck’s medical teachers at Uppsala, Olaus Stenius, was famous in his day, though trained originally as an astronomer. Rudbeck would make his discovery of the lymphatic glands with “almost no instruction” from the medical faculty, according to Eriksson (1994), 1.
One main challenge to anatomists in Rudbeck’s day was how to find bodies for dissection. Cases of grave robbing, body snatching, and other macabre means to obtain specimens were well known in early modern Europe. After Rudbeck was named professor of medicine, he would write several letters to his patron, De la Gardie, trying to receive help in gaining access to bodies. See, for instance, his undated letter in 1682, Bref III, 187.
The discovery of the lymphatic glands was described by Rudbeck himself in an often cited letter, for instance Eriksson (2002), 58–59. The discovery is discussed in there, 59–65, as well as in Robin Fahr?us, “Rudbecks upptackt av lymfkarlssystemet,” UUA (1930), 3–9; Lindroth’s Stormaktstiden, 416–17; and Lindroth’s “Harvey, Descartes and Young Olaus Rudbeck,” in the Journal of the History of Medicine (1957). Rudbeck’s discovery of the lymphatic glands was “the first and for a long time the only significant Swedish contribution to European medical research” (Stormaktstiden, 414).
My discussion of Queen Christina’s court is based on a number of works, particularly Susana Akerman’s Queen Christina and Her Circle (1991), Sven Stolpe’s Christina of Sweden (1966), Ernst Cassirer’s, Drottning Christina och Descartes (1940), and Lindroth’s Stormaktstiden, 197–204, 121ff. Descriptions of Queen Christina’s voice and face are from the French diplomat Pierre Chanut, and the opening of her grave is reported in von Platen’s Queen Christina of Sweden: Documents and Studies (1966). For more on Descartes’ life, see Jack Rochford Vrooman’s Rene Descartes: A Biography (1970) and Richard Watson’s Cogito, ergo sum (2002). The story of Descartes’ skull remaining in Sweden after his death comes from Jerker Rosen’s “Kristina’s hovliv,” in Drottning Kristina: Vetenskap och kultur blomstrar, in Den svenska historien VI (1979), 144.
Uppsala castle and Christina’s mannerisms were described by English diplomat Bulstrode Whitelocke, who got to know the queen and the court rather well on his stay in the country 1653–54. Queen Christina’s “chair of state of crimson velvet” is noted in Bulstrode Whitelocke’s A Journal of the Swedish Embassy 1653 and 1654 (1855), 23 December 1653, 231. The queen’s reaction to the demonstration was, in Rudbeck’s words, “fire and flames” (eld och lagor). The young Uppsala student described another visit to Queen Christina’s court, when he sang the part of a shepherd boy and the queen a kammarpiga (Atl. I, 437; II, 442).
There is some uncertainty, actually, about which “beautiful day” in the spring of 1652 Rudbeck performed his public demonstration. He always said April, though there has been speculation that it was actually May. This is because Rudbeck could have been translating the Swedish Julian calendar into the Gregorian; the latter was the calendar then in use in the Netherlands, where he happened to be at the time (and this would also mean a change of ten days, no small advantage in a debate over awarding priority for the discovery of the lymphatic glands). The dispute with Bartholin would rage fiercely, with one of the Danish physician’s students, Martin Bogdan, being particularly aggressive. For more on this conflict, see Eriksson (2002), 51, and Lindroth’s Stormaktstiden, 419–21. See also Johannes Rudbeck’s “Bibliografiska anteckningar om Olof Rudbeck den aldres anatomiska skrifter och striden med Thomas Bartholin” Samlaren (1904).
For more on the Swedish Age of Greatness, see David Kirby’s Northern Europe in the Early Modern Period: The Baltic World 1492–1772 (1990), and just about anything by Michael Roberts. The size of the Swedish empire is discussed by Roberts in The Swedish Imperial Experience 1560– 1718 (1979), 7–9, 83, 97. Sven Lundkvist’s essay “The Experience of Empire: Sweden as a Great Power,” in Michael Roberts, ed., Sweden’s Age of Greatness 1632–1718 (1973), 20–57, is also valuable. Roberts calls the administration “one of the best developed, most efficient and most modern administrations in Europe” in Gustavus Adolphus: A History of Sweden 1611–1632 (1953–58), vol. I, 278.
Strindberg discusses the poverty, the beggars, and the bands of outlaws roaming the country (1937), 102–5, with the image of them filling the roads on page 112. On page 25, Strindberg paints a vivid picture of war consuming national resources, and worsening the country’s social problems. The book, still controversial in some academic circles, is an opinionated and lively read. Descriptions of Stockholm in the narrative are taken from Whitelocke’s Journal (1855): the accounts of the roads and the inns, 30 November 1653, 175ff. The forests are described in many places, including 9 December 1653, 195–96.
The Vasteras wizard was Matthias Andreas Biork (or, in his Latinized name, Biorkstadius), also known in Sweden for his mathematical work. Thanks to Gunnar Eriksson (2002), 27, for information about Biork. Rudbeck’s relationship with his father is discussed by Eriksson (2002), 17–23, and with his mother, 23–24, as well as by K. W. Herdin, “Olof Rudbeck d.a.s fodelse och tidigare ungdom,” in Rudbecksstudier (1930). See also, among others, Hans Cnattingius, Johannes Rudbeckius och hans europeiska bakgrund. En kyrkoratts-historisk studie in Uppsala universitets arsskrift (1946), and H.
