Eric Ketelaar: 'A Gentleman’s Treasuries in the Dutch Republic'
Duration: 19 mins 33 secs
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About this item
| Description: | Discussion of the multiple angles on 'treasuries', office as a social space, and the role of women in the office. |
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| Created: | 2016-04-09 00:07 |
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| Collection: | Treasuries of Knowledge |
| Publisher: | University of Cambridge |
| Copyright: | Eric Ketelaar |
| Language: | eng (English) |
| Distribution: |
World
(downloadable)
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| Keywords: | archive; Archives; early modern; Dutch; administration; bureaucracy; |
| Explicit content: | No |
| Abstract: | In “De Huysbou”, a treatise on architecture, town planning and civil engineering, Simon Stevin (1584-1620) proposed that a gentleman’s house should contain six treasuries under lock and key: an office, a money chest, a silver cupboard, a jewellery chest, a chest for important and secret letters, and a private library. I want to focus on the intertextuality of the office, the chest with letters and the library: their contents, accessibility, and the retrieval of information. One of my case studies concerns Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687) who used Stevin’s treatise when designing his own houses. Huygens had (as Lisa Jardine has demonstrated) a keen interest in architecture and he was a prolific letter writer (he wrote 130 letters a month). How did he find his way in his archive and library?
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