Archive for the 'renaissance' Category

"How was it that a German priest writing in Latin and living in a French city far from the coast became the first person to tell the world that a vast ocean lay to the west of the American continents?"

Just learned today that "Dr. Tulp" was a nickname of the Dutch surgeon Claes Peterszen. According to The Island at the Center of the World, he administered the oath of allegiance to the VOC and the Dutch govt to the first wave of Manhattan's colonists.