9 October 2020

Lecture about the spectacular life of Johannes Swammerdam

Thanks to a donation, the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave recently received the book Historia insectorum generalis, ofte algemeene verhandeling van de bloedelose dierkens by Johannes Swammerdam. As a result, Eric Jorink has been asked to tell more about the life of Johannes Swammerdam. The lecture can be followed in the museum or via a livestream on YouTube.

As a researcher, Johannes Swammerdam has always stood in the shadow of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. This was partly due to the fact that Swammerdam died young, and also that Van Leeuwenhoek much more emphatically presented himself as a researcher. Yet it was Swammerdam who was the first in the Republic to devote himself to the study of insects and microscopic entities. The fact that he is less known is also the result of his eventful life, in which radical philosophical thoughts, jealous colleagues and a religious crisis played a major role.

Prof. Eric Jorink is Teylers professor at Leiden University and researcher at Huygens ING. He is a specialist in the history of science of the early modern period and is working on a biography of Swammerdam.