Scheffer, Johannes Rudbeckius: En kampagestalt fran Sveriges storhetstid (1914). The stories of Rudbeck playing on a hobbyhorse and the clothes are from a letter written in 1696 and printed in several accounts. “To sit on his bottom” were Rudbeck’s own words on the occasion. Rudbeck’s mother as “glittering sunshine” comes from Isak Fehr’s article in Ord och Bild (1897).
CHAPTER 2: ORACLE OF THE NORTH
Benjamin Franklin’s words are cited in Edmund S. Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (2002), 33. Rudbeck’s stay in Holland was, by all accounts, significant. Fries noted how few places would be better suited for his development than seventeenth-century Netherlands (Den svenska odlingens storman 1: Olof Rudbeck den aldre, Urban Hiarne och Jesper Svedberg [1896], 7). For more on the achievements of the Dutch at this time, see, among others, Jonathon Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806 (1995); Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (1987); Paul Zumthor, Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland (1963); and Mike Dash, Tulipmania: The Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused (1999).
One contact Rudbeck made in the Netherlands, his former teacher the Leiden University professor of anatomy Johannes van Horne, would later encourage him to pursue his goal of writing a Nova animalium Fabrica, and, in effect, accomplish for animal physiology what the anatomist Vesalius had achieved for human anatomy, 12 July 1657, printed in Auctarium Testimoniorum (1685) in Atl. IV, 65, 234. He wrote again on 15 February 1666, Atl. IV, 240. Rudbeck’s offers of employment were noted in a letter describing his early years, 9 February 1685, Annerstedt, Bref III, 208–9.
The early history of Uppsala’s botanical garden was described in his letters, Rudbeck calling it his “firstborn son,” 1 March 1685 (Annerstedt, Bref III, 218). For scholarly accounts, see, among others, Eriksson (2002), 198–207; Rutger Sernander, “Olof Rudbeck d.a. i den svenska botanikens historia,” UUA (1930), 10–22; and M. B. Swederus, “Olof Rudbeck den aldre: Huvudsakligen betraktad i sin verksamhet som naturforskare. En skildring,” in Nordisk Tidskrift (1878). Rudbeck’s botanical garden can be seen today most commonly in the background of the 100 Swedish kronor note. This garden is now the Linnetradgard, named after his successor Carl Linnaeus. Olof Rudbeck’s son, Olof junior, played an important role in Linnaeus’s early botanical career, even hiring him as a tutor for the Rudbeck children.
The reputation of a happy marriage for the Rudbecks was also confirmed by Eriksson (2002), 88 and 159, and the description of the various items in their house is from a contemporary description cited on page 170. A discussion of the alleged Caesarean section is found in O. T. Hult’s “Nagra ord om det Rudbeckska ’kejsarsnittet,” in Rudbecksstudier (1930), 116–20. For a sample of the reception in learned circles, see the letter to Rudbeck by Oldenburg at the Royal Society, 23 July 1670 (RS, LBC.4.49).
“When France catches cold” were the words of Klemens von Metternich, describing the revolution of 1830, and are cited in Raymond F. Betts, Europe in Retrospect (1979), 34. My description of Olof Rudbeck is based on many surviving portraits, including van Mijten’s oil painting (1696). The single best source for seeing the various images over the years is Rudbeckius’s analysis of Rudbeck portraits in Rudbecksstudier (1930), 35–62. The mustache is Rudbeck’s own description, Atl. III, 517, and the fashion reference comes from Rudbeckius, Bibliotheca Rudbeckiana (1918), 36. Johan Esberg’s speech (1703) noted the cheeks, eyes, shoulders, and clothes as well.
The contents of the Uppsala anatomy theater come from Esberg’s description in his memorial speech: “Laudatio funebris qua polyhistori magno medico longe celeberrimo, dn Olao Rudebeckio patri in regia universitate Upsaliensi . . .” (1703). Rudbeck described one interesting skeleton with the arteries and veins colored in, kept in the theater, already made by the end of Queen Christina’s reign (1654), in a letter of 9 February 1685 (Annerstedt, Bref III, 207). Hakan Hakansson’s Anatomens oga: Bildvarld och varldsbild pa kunskapens nathinna (1995) has a valuable discussion of early modern anatomy and anatomy theaters. One important primary source is a letter Rudbeck wrote on 7 March 1685 (Annerstedt, Bref III, 219–23). Opinion differs on the capacity of the theater; Rudbeck said it could hold as many as five hundred, and Eriksson agrees (194), though other observers have pointed to two hundred, which some have even doubted as too high.
Rudbeck’s architectural work can be seen in the Atlas volume to Atlantica, though it must be remembered that the reproduced images do not always show the buildings as they actually appeared in Rudbeck’s day. Some of the drawings were plans, never fulfilled, and others purely dream projects. See, for instance, Josephson, Det hyperboreiska Uppsala (1945), 11.
Rudbeck’s inventions, such as a technique for improving Archimedean hydraulics, his means of recycling old screws, and a device for hoisting boats into the air in order to repair all the sides at will, are found in many of his letters, including Rudbeck to Bengt Oxenstierna, 23 April 1695 (KB, Autograf samling); Rudbeck to Bengt Oxenstierna, 2 December 1700 (Annerstedt, Bref IV, 381); Rudbeck to Baron Johan Hoghusen, 3 December 1699 (ULA, Lansstyrelsen i Uppsala lan: Landskansliet biographica I. D.IV.A 64). The claim that Rudbeck was born under a lucky star is from Esberg’s “Laudatio funebris” (1703).
CHAPTER 3: REMARKABLE CORRESPONDENCES
The opening quotation is taken from Fyodor Dostoyevski’s Crime and Punishment, translated by David Magarshack (1987), 20. The reference to Tyrfing as the “keenest of all blades” comes from Christopher Tolkien’s translation, The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise (1960), 2. Tolkien’s edition also prints the opening of Verelius’s Uppsala manuscript in appendix A. For more on how the Hervararsaga was read in the late seventeenth century, see Schuck’s KVHAA and Vilhelm Godel’s Fornnorsk-islandsk litteratur i Sverige (till antikvitetskollegiets inrattande) (1897).
Rudbeck’s mapmaking skills were well known among his contemporaries. His work for Carl Gustav Wrangel comes from his letters of 16 May 1674 and 21 May 1674 (RA, Skokloster samlingen N:O 75–E 8202). In another example of how Rudbeck’s expertise was valued among the Swedish elite, King Charles XI requested his help in the selection of land surveyors, mining officials, and other experts for work in the Baltic. Rudbeck’s response is preserved in a letter to the king, 3 June 1688, RA, Skrivelser till konungen Karl XI, vol. 32.
“It was like a dream” was how Rudbeck described the sensation in a letter, 12 November 1677, KB, Engestr.b.iv.1.30 (N:o2), printed in Klemming, Anteckningar om Rudbecks Atland (1863), Supplement A. Another valuable source is his dedication of Atl. I, 3–5. On tracing the origins of the project, Johan Nordstrom’s De yverbornes o (1930), most notably, argues in favor of a connection through the legendary Hyperboreans. The narrative builds upon Nordstrom’s thesis and a comparison with Verelius’s Hervararsaga (1672), which Rudbeck used in making his map.
Homer’s description of life in the Elysian Fields as “the dream of ease” is in the Odyssey IV, line 601, and the description of its games, dances, and “brilliant light” in Virgil, Aeneid VI, line 637, with the meadows and riverbanks, VI, lines 674–75. Rudbeck discusses the idyllic Elysian Fields most fully in Atl. I, 341–45, 352. Later treatments follow, developed and enlarged, including an examination of the Ododsakern, a polar paradise in the Hervararsaga and broadly reminiscent of the classical Elysian Fields. The lack of snowfall, storms, or powerful rains common in classical accounts are, for Rudbeck, descriptions of the land during the summertime.
Rudbeck’s words on “peace of mind” and “pen to paper” are found in his letter of 12 November 1677 in Klemming (1863), A. The time of Rudbeck’s insight is not known for certain. Many older accounts simply assert, without much support, the early 1670s, but the late 1660s seems more likely. Verelius was working on the Norse Hervararsaga by at least 1663, lecturing regularly in the late 1660s. The work was already well enough advanced by August 1669 to have a test printing ready, and to be sent off to De la Gardie. Rudbeck’s letters in the late 1660s also show a heightened interest in antiquities, and his references to the ancients
