Lambert Bidloo

Lambert Bidloo (30 August 1638 – 11 June 1724), of Amsterdam, was by religion, a Zonist Mennonite, by profession, an apothecary and botanist and by passion, a man of letters and translator. After a solid education in classical letters and a period of apprenticeship, Lambert joined the apothecaries' and surgeon's guild overseeing standards and education at the Collegium Medicum. In 1688, he became the director of this institution, and, along with associates and collaborators, botanist Jan Commelin and anatomist Frederik Ruysch he had a hand in its herbalist Hortus Medicus flowering into the global Hortus Botanicus (Amsterdam) of today. His various learned works in Latin and Dutch deal with plants, with Mennonite religious issues and with different historical themes, contemporary, biblical and literary. Among these Bidloo is best known for the curious Panpoeticon Batavum, (Amsterdam, 1720), a figurative and visual poet's gallery of Golden Age Dutch literature. This he produced as a joint undertaking with the noted artist and art historian Arnold Houbraken who was then also launching The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters, (Amsterdam, 1718–21).

Lambert Bidloo (30 August 1638 – 11 June 1724), of Amsterdam, was by religion, a Zonist Mennonite, by profession, an apothecary and botanist and by passion, a man of letters and translator. After a solid education in classical letters and a period of apprenticeship, Lambert joined the apothecaries' and surgeon's guild overseeing standards and education at the Collegium Medicum. In 1688, he became the director of this institution, and, along with associates and collaborators, botanist Jan Commelin and anatomist Frederik Ruysch he had a hand in its herbalist Hortus Medicus flowering into the global Hortus Botanicus (Amsterdam) of today. His various learned works in Latin and Dutch deal with plants, with Mennonite religious issues and with different historical themes, contemporary, biblical and literary. Among these Bidloo is best known for the curious Panpoeticon Batavum, (Amsterdam, 1720), a figurative and visual poet's gallery of Golden Age Dutch literature. This he produced as a joint undertaking with the noted artist and art historian Arnold Houbraken who was then also launching The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters, (Amsterdam, 1718–21).

Panpoeticon Batavum

.Mezzotint by Arnoud van Halen Bidloo contributed poems to artist Arnoud van Halen as part of the Panpoeticon Batavum (1720). This, Bidloo's best known work, is the poetic component of a fascinating gallery of miniature portraits, partially preserved in the Rijksmuseum. Bidloo's poetic review of the best Dutch writers constitutes one of the first historical presentations of this literary tradition.

Een Geletterd Man verdadigd en verbeterd

Among several projects the elderly Bidloo fulfilled his commitment to translate L'huomo di lettere (1645) of the Ferrarese Jesuit writer, Daniello Bartoli (1608-1685). For those aspiring to the title of man of letters this treatise was celebrated as the template of Italian eloquence during Bartoli's lifetime. By 1722 the book had been translated into German, French, Latin, English, and Spanish. Bidloo's Dutch rendering of the Italian work is entitled Een Geletterd Man verdadigd en verbeterd, proposing the defense and bettering of Bartoli's "lettered" man, as a Stoic model of Christian humanism. His preface begins with a dedication to his faithful daughter Maria, his "bibliothecaria". In his foreword Bidloo describes his introduction to Bartoli's Baroque bestseller years earlier at the Congress of Nijmegen (1677–78) by the papal nuncio of Innocent XI. This dignitary, Aloysius Bevilacqua, touted it to him as a challenging literary summa. Before the text there are several occasional poems attached by other poets, including fellow Mennonite Pieter Langendijk. Bidloo innovates by adding numbers to the series of headings; in Part I, 1-11; Part II, 1-27 . After Lambert's death in 1724, Hendrik Bosch, his Amsterdam printer, together with his two daughters as publishers, issued a final work in three volumes on the resonant theme of the downfall of the Jewish people.

References

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