Correspondence of Swammerdam (1664–1679)

Abstract

The seventeenth-century Dutch microscopist Jan Swammerdam is famous for his microscopic observations and descriptions of insects. He developed a variety of effective microscopic techniques and made detailed drawings of his specimens. A great deal of information about his life and work is to be found in his letters, which were an important means of communication between intellectuals abroad and at home. The letters are descriptive and set out his research in detail. They have been made publicly available within the context of the Circulation of Knowledge project, in particular through the ePistolarium website, which provides ample opportunities for querying the collection of letters. Querying is based on keywords and topics. Search results are displayed in graphical format (a Google map showing the spatial coverage of the correspondence, a clickable time line with markers linked to individual letters, a diagram of the correspondent network). A word list, n-gram list and Keyword in Context Index have been added as additional search tools.