Talk:Petrus Serrarius

A note on new research and development of the page to Charles Matthews.

User:Charles Matthews,

I am transferring from your user talk page to here our previous exchange regarding this page, with this diff as an initial pointer to all the references you had added there.

Starting today, and using these references of yours there, and additional references I have, I will start rewriting, consolidating, and improving the page. Once I am done with all the initial additions and improvements (which, I am estimating, should take two to three weeks), I am also hoping you can help me wikify all the bibliographic references and inline notes on the page. But we'll see how I progress in this task one step at a time I guess.

Just one note for you before I start. Most of the refs you used when you created and developed this page came from Richard H. Popkin. Popkin really "discovered" the person Petrus Serrarius coming from his philosophical/historical research into the philosophy of Benedict de Spinoza. However, once he realized how important Serrarius was for the biography of the philosopher Spinoza, he also realized that some research on Serrarius himself had already been done by the Leiden University professor Johann van den Berg. Popkin then, in a way that was also very characteristic to his long and widespread academic activity, went and met van den Berg, and found out that the latter had a student finishing her Ph. D. dissertation specifically on Petrus Serrarius. This student was Ernestine G. E. van der Wall, who finished her dissertation in Dutch at Leiden in 1987.

So, my rewriting of the page will start from the research of van den Berg and van der Wall, and will then also recognize all the additions made to his biography by Richard H. Popkin. But as I progress in my task, we'll have the opportunity to discuss these issues a little more in detail, if you want to. Thanks a lot again for all your help with this research and this task so far. warshy ^(¥¥) 19:52, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm glad to see you working in this area. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:05, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@Warshy Trivial correction: professor Johan van den Berg was not a German, so his first name is spelled simply with 1 "n" as Johan, compare https://hoogleraren.leidenuniv.nl/id/155 for his publications. In the Anglo-Saxon and Latin cultures Dutch names are always misspelled ;-) Hansmuller (talk) 10:47, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@Hansmuller: Hello Hansmuller. Are you saying that the correct spelling of his name in Dutch (Nederlands) is "Johanes" instead of Johannes?" The link you give spells it as it currently is in the page: Johannes van den Berg. So I am confused. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 19:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@Warshy It is quite easy as i have shown you above! Johan is his name! (Mine too :-) Hansmuller (talk) 21:38, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

@Hansmuller. Thanks. I have corrected it on the main page according to your instructions. All his items I have with me are signed J. van den Berg, nothing else. I remember seeing it in one place spelled as Jan van den Berg, but I can't find it right now. I am assuming that was wrong, and all my bibliographies now have only Johan van den Berg according to your instruction. Thanks a lot for your help. warshy ^(¥¥) 20:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Amsterdam Notaries' archives

The Amsterdam municipal archives are mining their extensive notaries' archives with lots of volunteers for transcription ("Amsterdamse Akten", 1578-1915), and many Serrarii (Serruriers, lock makers?) can already be found there: these archives (looking for Serrurier, Pieter). Hansmuller (talk) 10:08, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

User:Hansmuller I was able to located 2 items related to Pieter Serrurier in the first page, one from 08-09-1662, and one from 11-15-1662. But I could not read them, as they would need to be transcribed first and then probably translated, so I could try to read them. Thanks a lot, warshy ^(¥¥) 17:44, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Hansmuller. I've just looked at the files in the Commons. Nice work! Thank you! warshy ^(¥¥) 22:18, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

@Warshy Thanks, both texts are cute legalese about Serrurier's daughter Judith, the second contains her estate inventory, funny to see all her household stuff listed... poor girl and father.

• By the way, 1. you can read the Dutch transcription? you're an old Amsterdammer by now, aren't you? (then my translation is not that urgent.) 2. I'd like to see more title pages by S. Can you upload them perhaps? Ave et vale, Hansmuller (talk) 12:14, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Correspondence with Benedictus de Spinoza, Epistolae?

@Warshy Dear Warshy, If anyone knows it should be you... Where can we find the correspondence of Pieter Serrurier with Benedictus de Spinoza? The foremost Dutch website doesn't show these letters...it is spinozaweb.org/letters, which is down today, it appears. www.earlymoderntexts.com offers pdf's (Letters 1-84) but no Serrarius there, it seems. Cheerio (that's very old fashioned?), Hansmuller (talk) 16:31, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Dear Hansmuller. Serrarius was a friend, admirer, and supporter of Spinoza in Amsterdam, and he also visited Spinoza periodically when the latter moved to Rijnsburg and later to Voorburg (The Hague). But there is no correspondence per se that is extant between the two. Pieter Serrarius is mentioned once by name in the correspondence between Oldenburg and Spinoza, which led both Nadler and Popkin to conclude that he was probably the person that took Oldenburg from Amsterdam to Rijnsburg so he could meet Spinoza in person. Oldenburg spent one day talking to Spinoza in person, and from that one meeting that was probably facilitated by Serrarius, the correspondence between Oldenburg and Spinoza continued for many years. There are also some letters left, very few, directly between Serrarius and Oldenburg in the volumes of Oldenburg's correspondence. Best regards, warshy ^(¥¥) 17:39, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@Warshy Dear Warshy, Thanks. (In a historical novel the text of the missing correspondence between S. and S. might be reconstructed...) Can you specify Serrarius' correspondence in the article text? By the way, you still think Spinoza was not a Dutch philosopher? :-) Thanks again, Hansmuller (talk) 12:17, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

questions

Hansmuller,

Thanks for all the work you have been doing here. I will try to ask a couple of questions about the notarial records, and then I will try to answer some of your other questions about Spinoza's life and his correspondence, his cultural milieu, etc.

1) Does Ernestine G(esine) E(verdine) ever mention Pieter Serrarius (Serrurier) having a daughter named Judith anywhere in her dissertation? If not, and if these records indeed refer to our Pieter Serrarius, then at this point, with your additions, Wikipedia currently knows more about Pieter Serrarius than any other book or record in the world? The only fact that may throw some doubt about it is your own note that the mentioned executors of the estate of Judith Serrurier were Louis and Joseph Serrurier, and not her father Pieter Serrurier? Are Louis and Joseph Serrurier indeed related in some manner to Pieter Serrarius? We would have to confirm all that.

2) I also know that van den Berg (EGE's teacher and dissertation advisor) mentions his marriage and the name of the wife. I don't know if EGE also mentions that in the dissertation.

3) Bendictus de Spinoza was Dutch, no doubt about that, and that should be the name of the article as far as I am concerned. He was Dutch in the sense of the culture where he operated and geographical place where he lived his entire life. But he was also a Portuguese and Marrano immigrant in his origins and his cultural roots. And, up to the age of 22 or 23 in 1656, the year he broke off and separated himself from the Amsterdam Portuguese (Jewish) community, he was also a student and part of that community. What I believe happened in 1656 is that he finally decided to separate himself from that community and become an independent person that did not belong to any church or religious community, and to become an independent thinker and philosopher. The example of the Collegiants and their colleges and his friends in that milieu, such as Pieter Serrarius, helped give him the model of a person without a religious church, and helped shelter him for a number of years, until he could establish himself as precisely that: an independent and religiously unaffiliated citizen of the Republic and an independent thinker and philosopher called Benedictus de Spinoza.

4) Pieter Serrarius was one of his Collegiant close friends, supporters, and admirers that knew Benedictus before he broke off with the Portuguese (Jewish) community, from the time he was still Benedito Spinoza, the son of newly arrived Portuguese immigrants and merchants. Serrarius was one of the people who helped the young Benedito make that unheard of transition to becoming an independent citizen, not religiously affiliated with any community, and an independent thinker and philosopher. Serrarius was also a wealthy merchant, and he was one of the friends of the young Benedito who used his financial means to help him make that transition and establish himself as the independent Latin thinker and philosopher Benedictus de Spinoza.

This is what I think happened and how the young Benedito finally became the famous international Latin philosopher Benedictus de Spinoza in a few short sentences. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 18:21, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Warshy Dear Warshy, thanks for your questions and answers. I can't reach this EGE dissertation, although a second-hand too expensive damaged copy is for sale in Amsterdam (see internet). So your Q1 and Q2 i can't answer. I will add an English translation of the Dutch Notary documents about his daughter Judith and brothers I think Louis and Joseph (and translate this article for Dutch wikipedia).

• could you add your precious remarks about Serrarius and Spinoza on the present Wikipedia-article? Thanks, Hansmuller (talk) 12:50, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Hansmuller, that is the idea. To incorporate all the ideas I have sketched above in replies to your questions into the Serrarius page. However, that would require the addition of an entire separate section dedicated specifically to the relationship between Serrarius and Spinoza as it developed over almost 30 years. And, while writing that section, also leaving out the part that is my own original research, which should be in my book first, not on Wikipedia. So where do you invest most of your effort, on your own book/research, or on edition Wikipedia? The answer should be that the first option should come first, but the reality is often that the second part is actually easier from the practical and technical point of view. So you end up doing it first, wanting to believe that it may be a shortcut. But the final reality is that in real scholarship there are no shortcuts. All the small work of writing the paragraphs has to be done and completed, sentence by sentence. So what really seems to happen in the end, is that the only work that gets done is the half-assed work that ends up showing up in some Wikipedia page. So, in the end, does technology make the research work easier or just more complex and difficult than when all you had in front of you was the blank paper staring at you from the typewriter's block? There certainly seem to be more questions to mull over and answer now than before. warshy ^(¥¥) 18:16, 13 June 2020 (UTC)