556
and then went to work for his successor/younger brother Emperor Matthias, dividing his time between Amsterdam and Prague, eventually moving full-time back to
the Netherlands, based in Utrecht as of 1618. He became a member of the prominent
artist’s guild of St. Luke, and died there in 1639.
9
According to the first biographical
sketch of his life by Dutch author/painter Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719) Savery
had gone “insane” by the time of his death. He had seen too many deeply vulnerable
animals jostled about; netted, dragged, strung up, forced to pose—trophies for
Renaissance collectors. He had been inside the castle and knew that he had been a
collaborator in the paradoxical best, and worst of human nature. The same castle
walls as Boccaccio’s protagonists, not realizing that they themselves were hosting
9 See RKD, https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/Savery%2C%20Roelant, Accessed April 24, 2020.
Fig. 59.2 Portrait of Emperor Rudolf II by Hans von Aachen (1152–1615). (Public Domain)
59 Savery’s Castle of Secrets