Franciscus sylvius painting cabinets

Masterpieces at a Leyden Home

By Peter J. Koehler

When reading probity name Sylvius, most neurologists will deem of neuroanatomic structures like the canal and the lateral fissure of say publicly hemispheres. Descendant from a Protestant kith and kin from northern France (the city more than a few Cambrai that at the time was situated in the southern Netherlands), Franciscus dele Boë (1614-1672), also known type Sylvius, was born in the Teutonic town of Hanau, east of Frankfurt-am-Main.

He studied medicine in Sedan and Leyden, made a peregrination to southern Germanic universities and defended a thesis certified the university of Basel, Switzerland (1637). He graduated a second time nobleness following year at Leyden university.

He became famous for his anatomy lessons, watch the time including physiology. He demonstrated the circulation of the blood pass for published by William Harvey (1578-1657) uncluttered few decades previously (De motu cordis, 1628).

“Many students, and certainly not nobility worst ones, attended his courses, positive that it seemed as if one and only he could understand and explain anatomy.” Among his students was Danish Socialist Bartholinus (1616-1680), son of the famed anatomist Caspar (1585-1629). Thomas’s notes be fooled by Sylvius’s course of the early 1640s was included in his father’s Institutiones anatomicae (1641 edition). Caspar Bartholinus wrote “we cannot pass by the development accurate anatomist D. Franciscus Sylvius; disseminate his noble mind and ingenuity incredulity take the admirable new structure celebrate the brain.”

Following a period of practicing general medical in Amsterdam (1641-1658), swing he lived at the Keizersgracht [canal], and during which he enjoyed alchemy and anatomy in his leisure at this point, he returned to Leyden to follow professor of medicine. He gave bedside teaching in the nearby Caeciliahospital sports ground studied the pathological changes at autopsy.

Fissure of Sylvius

He attracted many far-out students, including Danish Niels Stensen (“Steno”; 1638-1688), who wrote that Sylvius’s machinate of brain dissection was a company of the ancient Galenic approach bracket the more recent method of Costanzo Varolio (1543-1575).

The latter cut the thought from its base to above, thereby improving the visualization of structures wrongness the base, including the cranial willies whim-whams and the pons (Varolius). Another learner, Gabriel Ypelaer, defended a thesis beneath Sylvius’s supervision, in which he tingle a description of the lateral go down (1660). Sylvius published it three age later in his own Disputationem medicarum decas.

In 1774, the Swiss Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777) emphasized that this was probably the first description of decency fissure. Sylvius’s name became also contingent with the aqueduct, although many make mention of to the homonymous teacher of Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), Paris anatomist Jacobus Sylvius (1478-1555).

Probably the structure had already antediluvian observed by others before Jacobus Sylvius, although there is discussion on bon gr they really saw the small bagman. The Leyden Sylvius, however, described magnanimity “canalis vel aquae-ductus” between the concurrent “roots of the spinal cord” coupled with the corpora quadrigemina below “our bridge” (Disputationem (1663; chapter 21).

With respect authorization physiology, Sylvius rejected the classical tripe and humors, retaining the concept comment animal spirits that were used happening the brain and sent to excellence muscles through the nerves. He adhered to a kind of chemical humoral pathology that became known as iatrochemistry, in which effervescense, a vehement meeting point between acid and alkaline secretions come about, for instance, in the right chamber of the heart or the duodenum.

Collecting Masterpieces

Sylvius’s first wife, Anna de Ligne, whom he married bother 1649, died the year before bankruptcy moved back to Leyden. Their bend over children also died at a adolescent age. Arriving in Leyden, he mercenary a nice house at Rapenburg (on a canal) no. 31, not far-away from the university building. He confidential it converted (for 10.500 guilders) collide with a distinguished home with dining time and salon.

Other houses at the Rapenburg were owned by upper-class Leiden humanity, including city official, merchants, and famine Sylvius, university professors. An inventory methodical his house in 1673, half capital year after his death, shows ramble he had been the owner watchword a long way only of a considerable library, incorporating hundreds of medical, chemical, and abstract books, but also one of loftiness largest painting collections of the city.

It seems that at the time unquestionable was a patron for contemporary painters, including Experiens Sillemans (1611-1652/3; six paintings) and Simon Luttichuys (1610-1661; six) distance from Amsterdam, and Gerrit Dou (11) status Frans van Mieris I (7) bring forth Leiden. Among the latter painter’s productions, Sylvius owned “The music lesson” business partner portraits of Sylvius and his alternative wife Magdalena L. Schletzer, whom fiasco had married in 1666. During nobleness plague of 1669, Sylvius became badly ill, but survived. However, his teenaged wife (21 years old) died, much before Van Mieris finished the likeness. It was hanging in Sylvius’s head start room. For Van Mieris, Sylvius was “zynen Mecenas” [his Maecenas]. Dutch novelist and painter Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719) wrote: “Professor Silvius, welke laatste dikwerf verzogt, dat al wat hy maakte voor hem mogt wezen” [Professor Sylvius, probity latter who often asked that collective what he made might be have a handle on him] (Houbraken, 1721, p. 3).

Next retain the painting with his second little woman, Van Mieris painted another portrait do in advance Sylvius (1665, see above, he put down the age of the person 52, which should have been 50 get into 51).

Furthermore, Sylvius owned works by Roelant Savery (1576-1639), Paulus Potter (1625-1654), enjoin Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668), in particular organism scenes. Imagine living in such unornamented kind of art gallery! A refurbishing of his home showed that let go had 22 paintings in his dining room (including the five senses emergency Jan Miense Molenaer), 34 in coronet large salon, 26 in a result in chamber, 16 in the upper hitch chamber, and 42 (including Van Dyck’s portrait of King Charles of England) in the master bedroom that was arranged as a kind of Kunstkammer.

Apparently, he did not collect everything wean away from his surroundings, as is demonstrated indifference the fact that he did have any of the moralizing archetypal pieces by Jan Steen (1626-1679) rout landscapes of Jan van Goyen (1596-1656).

The Quack and (Brain)Stones

Since Jheronimus Bosch’s picture “Cutting the stone,” similar scenes scheme been depicted in paintings and engravings during the 16th and 17th 100 (see World Neurology 2017, January, pp. 6-7). Adriaen Brouwer’s (c.1605-1638) “Quacksalver,” promptly possessed by the Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe), was hanging in Sylvius’s entry extent. Although it is not a protocol of the actual procedure of “cutting the stone,” stones are depicted noose know the ropes be on pieces of red string recover the quack’s banner, in a fashion that can observed in several agitate paintings. It would indicate examples carp stones that the quack had self-possessed in the past from the heads of other patients. Even a cut has been attached to the banner.

The place of action is a exchange square, where a quack, who has relatively short legs, with long fixed, a beard, and moustache, is at a standstill on a partly sawed off retreat buried barrel. He is wearing simple red hat with feathers, a afraid coat with blue stripes, and brownish trousers. These clothes remind of picture Italian comedy (commedia dell’arte), which was sometimes applied by painters. A at odds is attached to his belt. Forbidden seems to be looking at grandeur viewer.

In his left hand, he has a small pot and with influence index finger of the right helping hand he probably takes some ointment. Travel the table in front of him, we see adult people, probably peasants listening and looking to the objects on the table. There are too some children. The one with probity red beret with white feather promote pink coat may be doing remorseless mischief. The woman in brown blouse and white bonnet behind the counter, laughing to the quack possibly took the plug from the bottle exchange of ideas the blue fluid, or is she emptying a small pot? To rank right-hand side, a woman in do away with coat with white bonnet and forestage, is sitting on a low slab. A man in front of reject seems to be explaining what recap happening; he is pointing to authority quack.

Two other persons, one with nifty red cap and the other smashing black beret, behind that man funding discussing the scene. A man, prejudice on the windowsill of the unlock window above, and a woman last him, are also listening. A numeral of objects are displayed on birth table, including a small bottle dictate a plug, a spatula – on the same plane may be pointing in an time direction –  and a bowl hear a triturator. A big knife admiration hanging from the edge of nobility table.

At the background to the stay poised, we see a farmer’s house instruct a church (and some persons, get someone on the blower of whom is obeying nature’s get together near the tree) and to description right façades of six houses of the essence a row. Deception of the simple peasants seems to be the demand subject of this scene.

If the bystander would still have doubts, the cougar added, on the upper right crossing of the banner, some letters: “JAN CERNAKEL.” This is a reference colloquium Bruegel’s “Witch of Mallegem,” where squarely is spelled with a “k” or of “c.” The German world “Karnickel” has several meanings, including rascal be unhappy bellwether.

The Pineal Gland and Brain Stones

Although the artists of the paintings and engravings ramble directly or indirectly refer to “cutting the stone” had moralistic or mock-heroic intentions, rather than showing actual jus gentium \'universal law\', it is funny to see wander Sylvius at least owned one specified painting. This is particularly interesting pass for he lived in a time, schedule which the pineal gland, by generous, including René Descartes (1596-1650), Henricus Regius (1598-1679), and Louis de la Make (1632-1666), was believed to be authority organ in which the soul progression localized.

The finding of calcifications, stones, hold this organ led to several speculations. Some reasoned that these findings could never be compatible with the given of localization of the soul expansion the pineal gland. Others, who confidential found such stones in persons be equal with behavioral disorders (including a woman who committed infanticide), believed rather that essential parts proved that the cause was play a part that organ. By its calcification, integrity physiological flow of humors in prowl area was believed to be illegal (see World Neurology 2017, January, pp. 6-7).

In these discussions, the name blond Sylvius (and English physician/anatomist Thomas Writer [1614-1673]) was often found as opponents to the idea of attributing much a function to the pineal secreter. The town physician of Nijmegen, later professor of medicine and anatomy gauzy Utrecht (1649), IJsbrand van Diemerbroeck (1609-1674), published a new edition of top Anatome Corporis Humane (1679; first 1 1672), in which he gave straighten up description of the anatomy and neat of the pineal gland, mentioning “arena & calculi” [sand and calcification] defer occupied half the volume of class gland, with a reference to Sylvius, who indeed referred to the pineal gland in his Disputationes Medicarem IV (De Spirituum Animalium in Cerebro, Cerebelloque Confectione, per Nervous Distributione, atque Usu Vario). He was much in beyond doubt about its function.

“Know Thyself”

This ancient Hellene aphorism is one of the Deep maxims depicted on a column hill the Temple of Apollo. Smith (1999) believed that Sylvius’s painting collection “emphasized the importance of self-knowledge and goodness effort to achieve moderation in move away things, like the numerous fruit opinion flower still lifes in his solicitation, which alluded to the ephemeral character of human existence and the egotism of the things of the sphere, the message of neostoicism.”

Brouwer’s “Quacksalver” would also fit in this idea make stronger admonition to temperance and several refreshing the themes, also used in birth literary arts of the period, counting self-knowledge and “insight in the misleading essence of the world.” It would be recognizable in Sylvius’s inaugural land of your birth, when he became professor in Leyden (1658). The painting in Sylvius’s quantity gives evidence of his sense rob humor as well as the comprehension of Van Mieris’s and Brouwer’s ditch among the public. •