by Nina Siegal
Pauw didn’t make me do much more than carry water and hold plants while he gave his famous lessons in botany. He preferred to do things by himself—things like cutting and bottling specimens. In spite of his preaching about how death was always among us, I never imagined I’d lose him, too. But he died at his desk as he was painting one of his banners. It would’ve said Mors ultima ratio, “Death is the final accounting.” I was the one who found him, his face on his desk, his nose and cheeks covered with the black ink that had spilled from his pot.
I was alone there in the anatomical theater for a couple of weeks, sleeping in one of the skeleton boxes, before the successor came. He was Otto van Heurne, the one they call Heurnius, and he adopted me as if I were just another oddity in the anatomicum. He was a much more gentle soul than Pauw, and he moved Pauw’s dusty skeletons and their moralizing banners upstairs.
Then he filled the anatomical theater with actual wonders: rocks and shells, coins and butterflies, Roman busts and burial urns, heads of Greek goddesses, carved African elephant tusks, wooden oars painted by South American tribes, ancient idols, whale bones, Japanese utensils for serving tea. If I stood in the center of Van Heurne’s universe, the entirety of the world seemed to spin around me, from the archangels in the heavens, through the celestial dome, right down to the stones and rocks under Lucifer’s feet.
Heurne persuaded merchants, sailors, and even ship surgeons to bring us earthly goods; and in this way, he taught me the rituals of my current faith: acquisitiveness.
If I’d once been afraid of death, who had taken three parents from me in two years’ time, Heurnius’s influence taught me to cultivate a pleased fascination with the dark messenger. Among the oddities and rarities that filled our chambers, Van Heurne kept specimens of the human dead. He bought dead children from an Englishman in Amsterdam, he asked his wonder hunters to seek for him the bodies of a giant. He was drawn to the ways of ancient Egypt, where it was believed that one never died but was simply “transfigured.” He loved especially to collect mummies in sarcophagi.
As Leiden’s chief anatomist, he also liked to examine the freshly dead. It was my job to fetch bodies for him. I was in my teens, and he sent me traveling the country freely by myself. Though the corpse cart emitted an awful stench, it didn’t seem to prevent me from finding plenty of willing ladies.
The years with Heurnius passed quickly, but after nearly a decade pushing that corpse cart, it was time for me to make my way in the world on my own. I was just about to turn eighteen when I had the idea to come to Amsterdam and become a dealer using what skills he’d taught me. Soon enough I would buy a canal house and marry myself a beautiful Amsterdam girl.
We parted as father and son—in tears—and he gave me a purse and told me to waste no time in meeting the anatomist at the Amsterdam Surgeons’ Guild. I secretly hoped that I wouldn’t have to push the corpse cart anymore, so I avoided making that contact. But by then it was already 1629 and Amsterdam was bustling with hungry curio dealers. I tried to sustain myself on buying and selling alone, but there was too much competition on the wharves and I was a mere Leidener fighting every other Amsterdam rogue for a steady supply of wonders. I was down to my last five stivers when Tulp came looking for me.
Since then, I’ve been his porter and body bearer and curator and culler. He is no Heurnius—no Heurnius, indeed. He keeps me busy with his chores while he works on the grand scale of moral philosophy, and yet he still counts all his coins very carefully. And though he has a small collection of his own curios, he is no hoarder like Pauw or Van Heurne. In the off-season, when the anatomies aren’t in session, he lets me use the theater to display my wonders, and he pays for the quayside stables, too. He has asked me to procure for him an ape from the Australasias.
So now you see how whimsical this life can be? If I’d walked through the wood on my own two feet and come upon a crossing, I might have chosen the right path and not the left, but I was mounted upon an ass, which took its own haphazard course, so I landed where I am, as a collector of live animals and dead men.
On the stairs winding down from the anatomical theater to the guildhall door, I said a prayer to my maker that the crowd had dispersed. Those who pray for only their own sake are rarely rewarded, though, and I was not so lucky either. The door, I swear, was bulging against the weight of that mob. They were pushing, punching, kicking, leaning into it, and their shouts were just as heavy as their hands. It is not a small door, you know, and the iron locks and latches were made by the city’s best smiths. There must have been some thousand men out there trying to break it down.
I grabbed what was at hand—a long stick, a chair, a rug—and jammed them against the door, then said another hopeless prayer. I knew they’d find a way to get through; I only knew not when.
I ran up the stairs, locking doors at each landing and trying to shore up the final door to the anatomy hall. Soon, very soon, Tulp would take the center platform of the anatomy theater and begin his lecture. He would need me to act as his assistant. I would need to be inside. But I just ran up and down the stairs in a frenzy, trying to find a way to bolster our locks, to secure the doors, to prevent the throngs. It was only a matter of time before that whole crowd burst in.
Most excellent and ornate men of Amsterdam: Honorable Burgomaster Bicker, Amsterdam burghers, gentlemen of the stadtholder’s court, magistrates, inspectors Collegii Medici, physicians, barber-surgeons, apothecaries, apprentices, and public visitors to our chamber, on behalf of the Amsterdam Surgeons’ Guild, it is my greatest honor to welcome you all to the Amsterdam theatrum anatomicum on this, the opening night of the winter festival 1632.
At the request of the governors of our noble guild, I do humbly come before you to offer my annual lecture on the Human Body and the Fabric of Nature. Tonight, gentlemen, we commence the anatomical demonstration that will be the centerpiece of our city-wide fête. This is an occasion of unparalleled import for the town of Amsterdam and the Republic of Holland. Here shall we turn the true eye of scientia to man’s earthly form, so that we may come to know our place in God’s great universe through extensive ocular testimony, lecture, and debate.
Our anatomical lesson shall be followed by a banquet for our guild members and honored guests in the great hall in the Waag’s second tower. Our lecture will resume again tomorrow evening and continue throughout the week for five or six more evenings here in this tower. But later tonight the whole town will join together for public feasting and a spectacular torch parade through town, beginning in front of the Waag, continuing down the Nes, returning up the Damrak, and ending with fireworks in Dam Square.
I am Dr. Nicolaes Pieterszoon Tulpius, a son of Leiden. During the course of these proceedings, you may address me as Dr. Tulp or Tulpius. This occasion marks the second anniversary of my term as Amsterdam anatomist, lecturer, and praelector of our guild.
That guild of which I speak is one of the most highly respected of its kind in all Europe. Our schul anatomicum dates back to 1550, when we presented our first autopsia at the convent of the Eleven Thousand Maidens at Sint Ursula the Divine. The skin of the cadaver used in that effort—that of Suster Luyt, an executed thief—was carefully removed and treated and is currently exhibited in our guildhall, should any among you like to see it. Today, our guild doth represent eighty registered doctoris medicinae, two hundred and fifty barber-surgeons, and three hundred and ten apothecaries, providing treatment to one hundred and ten thousand residents of Amsterdam.
I count here at least a dozen members of our famed guild, including Warden Jacob Janszoon de Wit; Warden Hartman Hartmanszoon; Matthijs Calkoen; and our prized new apprentices, Adriaen Slabbraen and Jacob Block.
Gentlemen, 1632 is truly an annus mirabilis for Amsterdam. It has long been said that our city is strong in commerce but in all intellectual endeavors we are overpassed by Leiden, our neighbor town to the south and the home to a great university. This year, my friends, Amsterdam will rectify that state of affairs. In a mere
three months’ time, the new Atheneum Illustre, our very own university, will open right here in Old Town at the end of the Kloveniersburgwal, led by Amsterdam Surgeons’ Guild member Caspar Barlaeus. The Atheneum shall be devoted to pursuits of all scientia, Latin, geologic arts, and, of course, natural philosophy. The Atheneum shall prove to the world that there is no place more illustrious on this globe than Amsterdam, and I know there are many among us tonight who would contribute to that honorable goal.
Ours is a city of rebirth, reclaimed from floodwaters and built upon the tireless industry of our engineers and craftsmen. Nowhere is our progress better represented than here, in the theatrum anatomicum. Even today, the great anatomists of Padua must conduct dissections in that city’s concealed cellars, as the Vatican holds our scientia to be heretical. That church has silenced our friend and fellow philosopher Galileo Galilei, who proposes the view that the sun doth not move, but that earth revolves about it.
I would like to say, on behalf of the governors of our guild: let good Galilei come to Amsterdam, and we shall welcome him and his Copernican views! For ours is a free city, where the greatest minds of Europe may join together and celebrate true wisdom. See among us tonight, gentleman, that our town is already a haven for great thinkers. We have with us this very evening our dear friend and fellow philosopher René Descartes from Paris, who honors us with his presence in our humble anatomical theater. Please join me in welcoming him, sires, for he is an amateur anatomist in his own right.
Paris, Padua, Genoa, Venice, and Antwerp—all these cities may compete for prominence, my friends, but none matches Amsterdam’s independence; our social, economic, intellectual liberty. We have among our citizens some of the greatest minds of all Europe, learned and skillful anatomists, painters, architects, draftsmen, engineers.
I observe among us tonight many of these dignitaries. Some of you I do regret I do not yet know, but throughout these proceedings you may think of this dissection theater as my living room.
Do not laugh, sires, for though we are in the company of death, yet we do celebrate life and all of God’s glories.
Before me lies the body of a notorious criminal hanged by the neck this very day in front of city hall. Sentenced to death by four lord mayors and the honorable magistrates of Amsterdam, many of whom sit among us tonight, for misdeeds too numerous to count, the convict was penitent as he was led to the scaffold. With his final breaths he uttered the words, “May God have mercy on my eternal soul.”
When looking upon his lifeless form, as we shall once I have removed this cloth, we should do well to remember the ancients’ story of Marsyas, the satyr who claimed he could play the flute better than any man, mortal or immortal. He challenged Apollo to a musical contest, which the Muses would judge. Apollo and Marsyas proved both fine musicians, but Apollo outshone his immodest rival. Awarded the right to punish the satyr however he pleased, Apollo flayed Marsyas alive.
Whosoever, like this patient upon the dissecting table, believes that he outshines the Divine must pay the price. Let no man consider himself above moral law, outside the reach of God’s law, else he be sacrificed to God’s purpose.
All is not lost in this tale, gentlemen. This body, which conducted none but evil deeds during its earthly cycle, shall now be redeemed and made holy by its new purpose, which is to reveal to us the glories of creation.
Gentlemen, to commence my ocular demonstration on this fine winter’s eve, I present you with a single tulip. The Violetten Admirael van Enkhuizen, gentlemen, is, as many of you do know, one of the finest tulips in the entire world round, surpassed in beauty and value only by the Semper Augustus. Note its color, finely striated in red, pink, and white, its faint golden tips a gilded halo to this throne. Behold then, the surprise at the bloom’s center: a black iris within a blue eye! Give ocular testimony, too, to the unusual shape of its petals: they curve and bend like a strange melody.
My only misfortune, dear friends, is that this true specimen of God’s divinity belongs not to me but to my friend here, the good poet and merchant Roemer Visscher. Thank you, Mijnheer Visscher, for lending it to me. This tulip, as you can see, as I walk it around the theatrum anatomicum, is the very exemplar of God’s majestic handiwork. Would that I could pass it around for each of you to touch with your own hands, so that you might experience some portion of the pleasure I feel in its presence.
The bulb of an admirael, much like this I hold in my hands, sold this month at the flower auctions for the princely price of one of the new canal houses on the stately Herengracht. This one was cultivated in a hothouse so that it would bloom in time for our fête.
What makes this Violetten so exquisite? No, not its coloration, sires, nor even the delicate shapely petals. Why, if I should desire to do so, I should remove the bloom altogether.
There! It is done!
Gentlemen, what noise is this? Why do you gasp?
Have you never witnessed a tulip plucked from God’s good earth and arranged in a vase upon the mantel? Gentlemen, I know many of you well enough to have seen your homes and know that all of your wives have done so!
Is it Mijnheer Visscher who would worry you?
No, no, he doth laugh!
Stand, my friend, and assure the crowd that you would not take offense! He knew what I would do!
There, gentlemen, you see! I do not deceive.
Gentlemen, gentlemen, be still! Resume your seats.
Please, honorable gentlemen, resume your seats!
Well, we must have a little fun at the winter fest, must we not?
Still, gentlemen, my amusing demonstration reveals a sober purpose. Why doth Mijnheer Visscher not object to my desecration of his priceless flower? For the life of this tulip lies not in the bloom that, whether planted or not, shall eventually wilt and wither. Rather the value of the admirael lies in its root, the bulb, which is returned to the earth so that it might bloom again. The petals, the iris, and the eye are but the outward manifestations of the glorious bulb. For it is the bulb that shall produce more tulips, the bulb that shall generate new life! The mother bulb lasts several years and may produce two or three clones, or offsets, annually.
In much the same way, gentlemen, human life is separated into two parts. The bloom of our human cycle is our body whilst it is young and strong and able. But as we all have observed, soon we, too, will wilt and wither, and ultimately our bodies are none but petals that do, lifeless, drop.
Our roots, gentlemen—the bulbs that do carry on past our flowering—are our souls. Our bodies are but the envelope of our souls here on earth.
The substance of my lecture is the division and also sympathy between man’s body and his soul. It’s a topic that should be familiar to those of you who have heard me sermonize here, on this pulpit, in this church of natural philosophy, in the past. Indeed, it was the subject of one of my first orations, De animi et corporis sympathia, at Leiden. I did not come to understand this matter on my own, of course. I inherited my understanding from the great ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle, whose observationis have been passed down to us through Hippocrates and Galen.
They tell us to remember the Delphic oracle: Nosce te ipsum, cognitio sui. Know thyself. And its correlative: Cognitio dei: Know God.
Cognitio sui: Know thyself.
Cognitio dei: Know God.
We must understand the human body, our ephemeral encasement that we shed upon our deaths, in order to understand God and his larger purpose, his higher order. Man, as another of our ancients, the Greek philosopher Protagoras, related, is the measure of all things. He is greater than any other beast that walks upon this earth. He is God’s ultimate conception. But what are the markings of our divinity? What separates us from all God’s other creatures?
Let us now bring our attention again to my tulip, which I hold separated from its root. But instead of looking at the flower this time, I would ask you to direct your gaze just a bit lower, to this other remarkable specimen on display: the human hand tha
t holds this stem. See how the hand twists, as I hold the tulip up to the candelabra. Note how the muscles within the arm do gently contract. See, honorable gentlemen, how the fingers do work independently of one another and yet also in harmony. How the thumb finds its way to meet the forefinger, and the remaining fingers open out like a bloom. These fingers grasp, press, and pluck! You have already seen how they plucked this fine bloom from its stem. To hold it aloft.
Like the tulip flower, this hand doth grow upon a stem. That stem, gentlemen, we shall call the cubitus, or forearm, comprised of two very different bones, which we shall call the radius and ulna, as per Vesalius, along with ligaments, nerves, veins and arteries, membranes and skin. Within our skin are flexor tendons and musculature that allow us to grasp this flower’s stem, for example, to hold it betwixt our fingers, to twirl it so that we might observe all sides, as I am doing now.
This motion, this simple twirling of this flower, cannot be accomplished by any other species known on the earth. It is the gift of man and man alone. The horse, for all its strength and speed, cannot hold a gentle bloom with its hoof. The elephant, for all its vastness and power, has no hands to hold nor fingers to wave. Even the Indian satyr, that intelligent wild ape, has not the agility or grace of human hands.
Why would we alone be ordained with this skill? And, more importantly, what do we make of it? The same hand that should let us hold the admirael, or, for example, perform surgery or stroke our fair wives’ hair in tenderness also enables us to steal, to strike, to knife, to kill. How do we use this hand? What do we owe to this appendage that would set us apart from barbarians and brutes?