553
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_59
Chapter 59
Savery’s Castle of Secrets
59.1 A Painter, an Emperor, a Castle, and a Bird
Roelant Savery (1576–1639) and his family fled Kortrijk, southern Belgium, in
1580 to escape Spanish persecution of Anabaptists. He would move to Haarlem
and, tutored by his older brother Jacob (1566–1603), soon made a name for himself as a painter. The young artist would migrate on to the bustling opportunities
afforded by Amsterdam, to Paris in 1603
1
and then, momentously, receive an invitation to relocate to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II’s (1552–1612) castle in
Prague, considered to be at that time the epicenter of the arts and sciences in
Europe. It was the same year that Jan Brueghel the Elder also first visited Rudolf’s
castle in Prague.
2
And the very year Savery’s contemporary, Jan Saenredam of
Assendelft, engraved, in collaboration with the fine Haarlem Mannerist, Abraham
Bloemaert, one of the most perfect Apollonian images of Paradise, an engraving
laid on paper of “Adam Naming the Animals,” ever produced. Rudolf was a passionate and compulsive collector of everything beautiful and strange, living and
dead. His relationship with Savery would in many ways change the way humanity
would forever come to view other species, noting that paradise itself was ephemeral. Never was a region spanning multiple nations, states, republics and empires
so unilaterally infatuated with arcadias. In Italy, Milan’s Cardinal Federico
Borromeo was encouraging his close friend, Jan Brueghel the Elder with an intelligent zeal equal to that of Rudolf, as if Christianity herself hung upon the degree
1 See https://artist.christies.com/Roelandt-Savery%2D%2D43142.aspx, Accessed April 25, 2020.
2 See RKD, https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/466467, Accessed April 25, 2020. See also, Zoology in
Early Modern Culture: Intersections of Science, Theology, Philology, and Political and Religious
Education, Chapter 10, “Exotic Animal Painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Roelant Savery, by
Marrigje Rikken, pp. 401–433, Brill, Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2014, DOI: https://doi.
org/10.1163/9789004279179_011, Accessed May 1, 2020. Series: Intersections, Volume: 32,
Editors: Karl A. E. Enenkel and Paul J. Smith. https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004279179/
B9789004279179_012.xml.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_59
Chapter 59
Savery’s Castle of Secrets
59.1 A Painter, an Emperor, a Castle, and a Bird
Roelant Savery (1576–1639) and his family fled Kortrijk, southern Belgium, in
1580 to escape Spanish persecution of Anabaptists. He would move to Haarlem
and, tutored by his older brother Jacob (1566–1603), soon made a name for himself as a painter. The young artist would migrate on to the bustling opportunities
afforded by Amsterdam, to Paris in 1603
1
and then, momentously, receive an invitation to relocate to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II’s (1552–1612) castle in
Prague, considered to be at that time the epicenter of the arts and sciences in
Europe. It was the same year that Jan Brueghel the Elder also first visited Rudolf’s
castle in Prague.
2
And the very year Savery’s contemporary, Jan Saenredam of
Assendelft, engraved, in collaboration with the fine Haarlem Mannerist, Abraham
Bloemaert, one of the most perfect Apollonian images of Paradise, an engraving
laid on paper of “Adam Naming the Animals,” ever produced. Rudolf was a passionate and compulsive collector of everything beautiful and strange, living and
dead. His relationship with Savery would in many ways change the way humanity
would forever come to view other species, noting that paradise itself was ephemeral. Never was a region spanning multiple nations, states, republics and empires
so unilaterally infatuated with arcadias. In Italy, Milan’s Cardinal Federico
Borromeo was encouraging his close friend, Jan Brueghel the Elder with an intelligent zeal equal to that of Rudolf, as if Christianity herself hung upon the degree
1 See https://artist.christies.com/Roelandt-Savery%2D%2D43142.aspx, Accessed April 25, 2020.
2 See RKD, https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/466467, Accessed April 25, 2020. See also, Zoology in
Early Modern Culture: Intersections of Science, Theology, Philology, and Political and Religious
Education, Chapter 10, “Exotic Animal Painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Roelant Savery, by
Marrigje Rikken, pp. 401–433, Brill, Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2014, DOI: https://doi.
org/10.1163/9789004279179_011, Accessed May 1, 2020. Series: Intersections, Volume: 32,
Editors: Karl A. E. Enenkel and Paul J. Smith. https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004279179/
B9789004279179_012.xml.