Scientist of the Day - Peter the Great

Portrait of Peter the Great, by Jean-Marc Nattier, The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg (Wikimedia commons)

Peter the Great, Tsar of all Russia, and then Emperor, was born June 9, 1672, in Moscow. Peter is a controversial historical figure, as scholars disagree on whether he enlightened a medieval Russian kingdom, or brought it to near ruin. Fortunately, this is a science column, and we don’t have to take a stand on Peter's statecraft. His contributions to science were more straightforward and less debatable.

Statue of Peter the Great, Rotterdam (Wikimedia commons)

Peter in his adolescence was interested in sailing and in building ships. In 1697, he accompanied an entourage, usually known as the Grand Embassy, to the Netherlands, ostensibly to learn Dutch shipbuilding techniques, with a side motive of making political alliances in Russia’s continuing battle against the Ottoman Turks.  Peter tried to travel incognito, but as he was 6' 8" tall, that was difficult. He worked in a shipyard for a while, but he was disappointed to find that Dutch ship-building techniques were largely unwritten, handed-down methods that were not easily teachable to foreigners. 

But he did meet Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, who opened up a new world for Peter, that of the microcosm, and gave him one of his hand-made, single-lens microscopes, so that Peter could observe blood cells in living eels all by himself. 

Fetal skeleton, from the collection of Frederik Ruysch, now in the Kunstkamera, Saint Petersburg (collection.kunstkamera.ru/)

Peter also visited Frederik Ruysch in Amsterdam, who had an unparalleled anatomical collection in his home. Ruysch had his own special wax-injection techniques for preserving specimens, especially human fetal remains, that fascinated Peter, and he is said to have kissed the preserved face of a young boy, it was so lifelike (Ruysch himself told the story). We don't know if Frederik's artist-daughter Rachel was in attendance when Peter visited – she would have been 33 at the time – but if she made a drawing of the encounter, I am unaware of it (see our recent post on Rachel Ruysch).

Human skull with wax model of brain inside, from the collection of Frederik Ruysch, now in the Kunstkamera, Saint Petersburg (collection.kunstkamera.ru/)

Peter went on to England in 1698, but he was still focused on shipbuilding and failed to meet Isaac Newton or John Ray or anyone else of scientific note.  Peter returned to Russia in August of 1698, with a small starter collection of specimens acquired in Holland. And while he was kept busy trying to establish his tsardom, he apparently never forgot those visits with Leeuwenhoek and Ruysch. For in 1716, he returned to Amsterdam, revisited Ruysch, and purchased his entire collection for some 30,000 guilders.  He had it shipped to Russia (an amazing feat in itself, since most of the collection was in glass jars), where it became the nucleus of the new Kunstkamera (museum) that Peter established in 1714 in his new city of St Petersburg. He also bought the museum of Albertus Seba, who collected more traditional natural history specimens, and transferred its contents to Saint Petersburg as well.  It actually arrived first, in 1716, a year before Ruysch’s hundreds of glass jars completed their journey.

The Kunstkamera in Saint Petersburg, across the river Neva, built under the direction of Peter the Great, 1719-1727 (Wikimedia commons).

Peter realized that he needed a larger space to house his acquisitions, which initially were displayed in his palace, so he ordered the construction of a new building in Saint Petersburg, begun in 1719 and completed in 1727 (after Peter's death in 1725).  It too was called the Kunstkamera (fifth image). One of the objects it housed was the Gottorp globe (sometimes Gottorf globe), a very large terrestrial globe with a celestial globe on the inside, access to which was gained by a small door.  Peter “requested” it when he visited Gottorf Castle in Schleswig in 1713, and it finally arrived in 1717. It was almost completely destroyed in a fire in 1748, so the modern globe on display is largely a restoration (sixth image).

Gottorp globe (sometimes Gottorf globe), acquired by Peter the Great from Schleswig-Holstein in 1713, transferred to the Kunstkamera, 1717 (collection.kunstkamera.ru/)

Per Peter's request, the Kunstkamera was a public museum from the outset, one of the first such in Europe. It still stands, and has a rich web presence, where you can learn a lot about its history. I am guessing that the natural history specimens of Seba have been transferred to other museums, for a search for “Ruysch” brings up hundreds of items, but a search for “Seba” comes back empty.

There is a monument to Peter in Saint Petersburg, known as the Bronze Horseman, the construction of which was one of the great engineering feats of the century. You can see it, and learn something about the challenges involved in moving its stone base, in our post on Marin Carburi.

William B. Ashworth, Jr., Consultant for the History of Science, Linda Hall Library and Associate Professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Comments or corrections are welcome; please direct to ashworthw@umkc.edu.