Album amicorum of Bernardus Paludanus

The album of the physician Bernardus Paludanus, or Berend ten Broecke (1550-1633), contains no less than 1900 entries. This amount came about because Paludanus used it as a visitors' book for his cabinet of curiosities in Enkhuizen. Before that, he had already travelled a great deal with the sizeable book, even to Palestine. In Italy, this true globetrotter had some 145 costume illustrations and genre scenes made by several painters, varying from Venetian beauties, a gondola ride and Catholic prelates to exotic soldiers with scimitars. The pictures illustrate the growing interest in other cultures.

A member of the East Frisian nobility, Renius a Deipholt, placed his coat of arms next to an image of a Paduan noblewoman in a bright blue dress. On the page next to it he placed his declaration of friendship. In it he pointed out the relativity of life to Paludanus in Padua: ‘Ludit in humanis divina potentia rebus / Et certam praesens vix habet hora fidem.’ In other words: heaven mocks human activities and what happens one hour guarantees nothing for the next...

Album amicorum of Bernardus Paludanus. Ca. 1900 contributions, 1575-1630, Western Europe, Palestine. Request number: 133 M 63