'Above Atlas his Shoulders' -Thomas Browne's Worldview

The English doctor-philosopher and literary figure Thomas Browne (1605-1682) held a unique understanding and view of the world which is rewarding to explore through the perspective of geography.

Its in Religio Medici  or ‘The Religion of a Doctor’ (1643) that Thomas Browne describes himself as a  microcosm or little world, as well as informing his reader that he possessed a globe.

‘the world that I regard is myself. It is the microcosm of my own frame that I cast my eye upon. For the other I use it but like my globe and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes do err in my altitude. For I am above Atlas his shoulders’. [1]

By saying he is 'above Atlas' Browne implies that as a microcosm or little world he has transcended the burden of carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.  

The large-scale sculpture known as the Farnese Atlas (header photo) dating from the second century of the Common Era depicts the fate of Atlas. In Greek myth, the giant is condemned by the gods to hold a globe—sometimes celestial, sometimes terrestrial—on his shoulders for eternity. 

During Browne’s era globes were sold in pairs: one showing the earth, the other of the heavens. The mapping of the night sky was far more detailed and accurate than the rough depictions of remote and little-known regions of Earth. 

The ancient Greek Strabo (64 or 63 BC – c. 24 AD) was the author of a vast work on geography. Written during the early Roman Empire, Strabo's encyclopaedic work consists of political, economic, social, cultural, and geographic descriptions. Its  the only surviving ancient text to describe the entire inhabited world known to the Roman world.  In Strabo's map of the  world the British Isles can be seen. (above) [2] 

Also listed as once in Browne’s library is Gerard Mercator’s epic world map of 1569. (below) [3]  Mercator's projection laid out the globe as a flattened version of a cylinder. His map, with its Mercator projection, was designed to help sailors navigate around the globe using its longitude meridian lines to plot a straight route. It was Dutch map-making and cartography which was crucial for Dutch explorers. 

Following their independence from Spanish rule in 1588 the newly formed Dutch Republic grew prosperous and expanded with overseas territory, notably in the East Indies. The Northern European port of Amsterdam became one of Europe’s busiest trading centres and superseded Venice as an importing and exporting  port in the 17th century. Just as during the Middle Ages the sea port of Venice was a major European trading centre with its network of canals used to convey and store imported goods to merchant’s storehouses from the Near East, so too Amsterdam with its man-made network of canals became the predominant sea and trading port in the 17th century. 

The 16th/ 17th centuries were an era of great exploration and discovery, notably through adventurers such as Olivier van Noort the first Dutchman to circumnavigate the world -  Willem Schouten the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean , Cornelis de Houtman, who explored the East Indies -  Willem Janszoon  the first European to  see the coast of Australia in 1606 and Cornelis Nay, explorer of the Arctic - The most notable Dutch explorer of the 17th century was Abel Tasman  the first European to discover New Zealand and Fiji. The Dutch also made important contributions to horticulture, land reclamation, and art throughout the 17th century. 

  

Dutch engraver Pieter van den Keere’s 12 sheet map of 1611 (above) was wall mounted. Its border shows 14 cities and the rulers of seven nations. Stylized pairs of figures in the national costume of national cultures are also depicted on it. 

Its often said that the 16th/17th centuries were advanced through three driving inventions- Printing , the Mariner’s Compass and Gunpowder, each of which transformed the lives of many in this era. 

Thomas Browne’s life spanned not only the Dutch 'Golden Age' but also England’s most traumatic century. He was born just weeks before the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and lived through the events of the English Civil war, the execution of King Charles, the Commonwealth of Cromwell, the subsequent Restoration of Monarchy, the Great plague of 1665 and the Fire of London in 1666. 

From his residence for an academic year in Montpellier in France, Padua in Italy and Leyden in Holland Browne acquired a privileged education and an appreciation of other cultures. His celebrated tolerance adhered to the maxim of ‘when in Rome do as the Romans’ as regards cuisine and food, as he frankly tells his reader -

‘I wonder not at the French for their dishes of frogs and toadstools, nor at the Jew for locusts and grasshoppers but being amongst them make them my common viands. And I find they agree with my stomach as well as theirs.’ [4]

Of greater importance Browne also recognised a major cause of hatred, one which remains so to the present day, that of nationalism. Nationalism, if zealous, encourages those who, purely from an accident of birth to consider their own nation to be the World’s best, and to dislike or even hate other Nationalities, often without having ever visited or even met anyone from the country which they hate. Browne’s continental education inoculated him against this prejudice, as he informs us-

‘I find not in me those common antipathies I discover in others. Those national repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice, the French, Italian, Spaniard or Dutch. But where I find their actions in balance with my countrymen, I honour love and embrace them to the same degree. All places, all airs are unto me one country, I am in England everywhere under any meridian’. [5]

Browne was able to give full expression to his interest in world geography, culture and customs in his subsequent work, the groundbreaking Pseudodoxia Epidemica which was first published in 1646. Its Latin title might loosely be translated as 'Pandemic of fake news'. Pseudodoxia is a pioneering work  and firmly in the vanguard of the early Scientific Revolution. Consisting in total  of over 200,000 words,  its sixth book addresses queries historical and geographical.  He points out that the terms East and West are dependent on where exactly one is located in the world and informs his reader on the botany and zoology of America. He also reveals an uncommon knowledge of cartography in discourse on the number of mouths of the Egyptian river Nile -   

'Ptolomy an Egyptian, and born at the Pelusian mouth of Nile, in his Geography maketh nine: and in the third Map of Africa, hath unto their mouths prefixed their several names; ..... wherein notwithstanding there are no less then three different names from those delivered by Pliny. ....Lastly, Whatever was or is their number, the contrivers of Cards and Maps afford us no assurance or constant description therein. For whereas Ptolomy hath set forth nine, Hondius in his Map of Africa, makes but eight, and in that of Europe ten. Ortelius in the Map of the Turkish Empire, setteth down eight, in that of Egypt eleven; and Maginus in his Map of that Country hath observed the same number. And if we enquire farther, we shall find the same diversity and discord in divers others'. [6]

Other prejudices which persist to this day are also tackled in Pseudodoxia - why do some people differ in the colour of their skin, why does the skin-pigmentation of American natives differ from African natives, as well as the thorny question- why does the religious prejudice of antisemitism persist ? He also recognised that what is considered to be beautiful in facial appearance and body decoration differs enormously between world cultures, stating-  

'Thus flat noses seem comely unto the Moore, an Aquiline or hawked one unto the Persian, a large and prominent nose unto the Romane; but none of all these are acceptable in our opinion. Thus some think it most ornamentall to wear their Bracelets on their Wrests, others say it is better to have them about their Ancles; some think it most comely to wear their Rings and Jewels in the Ear, others will have them about their Privities; a third will not think they are compleat except they hang them in their lips, cheeks or noses'.  [7]

One of the best gateways to understanding of a different culture is through learning its language. The Reverend Whitefoot, who was Browne’s lifelong friend, informs us that his friend was familiar with all the languages printed in Hutter’s polyglot New Testament of 1599. Hutter’s New Testament (above) includes the languages of Syrian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, Bohemian, Italian, Spanish, French, English, Danish and Polish. These 12 languages are printed in side-by-side-columns of 3 languages per page. Hutter’s polyglot Bible encouraged Christians to read and study the Hebrew language. Browne’s own interest in Hebrew was instrumental in his study of the esoteric lore of the Kabbalah. [8] 

With his deep interest in languages Browne was well-equipped to introduce badly needed new words, often of a scientific nature into English language. Although its not quite a foreign language he also took an interest in the peculiarities of the Norfolk dialect and noted these words to be in common use in Norfolk such as Bunny,   Mawther, Kedge, Seele, Straft, Matchly, Dere, Nicked, Gadwhacking Stingy,  Sap, Cothish, Thokish, and Paxwax. Strong traces of the Dutch tongue can be heard in Norfolk dialect to the present day.

Perhaps the most accessible of Browne’s works is his shortest work, A Letter to a Friend which was written as a bereavement consolation following the premature death of the English poet Richard Lovelace (1617-57) (above). A Letter to a Friend features numerous medical case-histories and opens with the demographic calculation that in the whole world ‘there dieth one thousand an hour’. 

Browne was aware that geographic locations can affect people psychologically and he's credited as the first to identify the psychopathology of what is known today as Paris syndrome. 

Paris syndrome has been described as a severe form of culture shock and a sense of extreme disappointment experienced by only a handful per million when visiting Paris and is believed to be caused by factors such as language barrier, cultural differences, exhaustion and above all else, idealization. 

With his deep interest in unusual psychic phenomena and introduction of the words  'pathology' and 'hallucination' into the English language, Thomas Browne was well qualified to identify the phenomena of Paris syndrome. Within the following paragraph he names ten geographic locations, defines the ozone-rich air of East Anglia as 'Aerial Nitre', introduces the word 'migrant' into English and advises against 'infirm heads' that is, impressionable minds from visiting Venice or Paris. 

‘He was fruitlessly put in hope of advantage by change of Air, and imbibing the pure Aerial Nitre of these Parts; …..He is happily seated who lives in Places whose Air, Earth, and Water, promote not the Infirmities of his weaker Parts, …..He that is weak-legg'd must not be in Love with Rome, nor an infirm Head with Venice or Paris. Death hath not only particular Stars in Heaven, but malevolent Places on Earth,…..in which Concern, passager and migrant Birds have the great Advantages; who are naturally constituted for distant Habitations, whom no Seas nor Places limit, but in their appointed Seasons will visit us from Greenland and Mount Atlas, and as some think, even from the Antipodes. [9]

Browne’s speculation on the migration routes of birds is a reminder of his keen interest in feathered creatures. At one time of another he kept an owl, a cormorant, a kestrel and an eagle. He's also credited with introducing the word 'incubation' into English. It was in his lifetime that one of the first recorded extinctions of a species of bird occurred.

 

The first recorded mention of the flightless bird known as the dodo was in 1598 by Dutch sailors when they discovered Mauritius, a small island near Madagascar which was a useful stopping-off point for Dutch sailors en route to the East Indies. Because the Dodo is a flightless it was easily captured by hungry sailors. Browne’s contemporary the Royalist politician, Sir Hamon L’Estrange of Hunstanton in Norfolk wrote of a dodo he saw exhibited  in London in 1638. 

‘About 1638, as I walked London streets, I saw the picture of a strange fowl hung out upon a cloth canvas, and myself, with one or two more then in company, went in to see it. It was kept in a chamber, and was somewhat bigger than the largest turkey-cock, and so legged and footed, but stouter and thicker, and of a more erect shape, coloured before like the breast of a young cock-fesan, and on the back of a dunne or deare colour. The keeper called it a dodo; and in the end of a chimney in the chamber there lay a heap of large pebble-stones, whereof he gave it many in our sight, some as big as nutmegs; and the keeper told us she eats them (conducing to digestion); and though I  remember not how far the keeper was questioned therein, yet I am confident that afterwards she cast them all again.

The last recorded sighting of a dodo was in 1662. The bird was immortalized by Lewis Carroll in his ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ The character of the dodo is believed to be inspired by a specimen of a dodo exhibited in the Oxford University Museum which Carroll frequently visited.

Exploring world cultures can be enriched through collecting artifacts from near and far, whether it's treasures gathered during travels or acquired locally. In an era long before photography, those with means could hire artists to capture the essence of these treasured possessions, preserving memories of exotic journeys and far-off lands. 

Sir Robert Paston of Oxnead Hall, near Alysham commissioned an unknown Dutch artist to paint a selected fraction of his collection of art-objects, some of which were acquired when his father visited Jerusalem and Cairo. Dating from circa 1665 The Paston Treasure (above) has a Multi-layered narrative, its simultaneously, a record of the Robert Paston’s collection, a Vanitas painting and a microcosm of the world in the 17th century, as hinted by the prominent position of a globe. Browne would have seen this painting when visiting the Paston’s and given that in Religio Medici he confesses,  'I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an horse’ he would  without doubt delighted in viewing it. 

The world’s continents are represented in The Paston Treasure by - a packet of tobacco from America, a boy and parrot from Africa, and a porcelain dish from Asia. Sculptures and gems, gold, silver and enamel, as well as music instruments of a bass viol, sackbut, violin and lute can also be seen. The peaches, grapes and oranges, along with lobster, suggest a luxurious lifestyle. 

The Paston Treasure also expresses a moral warning -  life has sudden, unexpected disturbances - the servant is disrupted from his duties by a monkey which has jumped onto his shoulder, the young girl is interrupted from her singing by a parrot alighting on the music she’s reading.. In recent years The Paston Treasure has been restored, exhibited in America and studied in depth by the art-historian Spike Bucklow in his excellent, insightful book. Today, it can be seen in Norwich Castle Museum.

Its only in recent decades that topics such as alchemy and the esoteric in general have been taken seriously by academics. Spike Bucklow is the first in over three and a half centuries to identify that The Paston Treasure displays a mounted shell cup (above) with a very clear image of Atalanta in the act of running. Bucklow notes, 'It is as if Sir Robert had put this shell in the painting to draw attention to a book that guided his alchemical journey', the book in question being Michael Maier's alchemical work Atalanta Fugiens (1617). [10]

One unique feature of Browne’s prose is his usage of geographical places and historical persons as symbols. For example he describes the difficulties in his compiling an encyclopaedia, as, 'oft-times fain to wander in the America and untravelled parts of truth'. Geographical place name symbols along with historical persons symbols can be found in Browne’s  philosophical work, the two-in-one diptych discourses of 1658, Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus. 

These two 17th century images, the Nigredo stage of the alchemical operation (left)  and 'The Garden of Mathematical Delights'( right) both from books once in Browne's library, are I believe, excellent visual representations of the thematic concerns and mood music of each respective discourse. (Click on picture to enlarge). 

The melancholic, Grave and Saturnine meditations upon human suffering in Urn-Burial are ‘answered’ by the Mercurial Garden delights of Cyrus. A multiplicity of opposition or polarities occur in Browne’s literary diptych, in  their respective themes, imagery, truth and literary style. Urn-Burial opens 'in the deep discovery of the subterranean world' and concerns itself with the oblivion of Time, in complete contrast The Garden of Cyrus concerns itself with Space and opens with ‘shooting rays and diffused light’ of the Creation before continuing in speculation on the geographical location of the Garden of Eden.  [11]

In Browne’s geographical symbolism America invariably symbolizes the new, the unknown and exotic.  In contrast the proper place name of Persia is used as a symbol of magic and esoteric wisdom. These two geographical symbols are juxtaposed in a startling way at the conclusion of The Garden of Cyrus - in doing Browne highlights how Humankind’s collective consciousness ebbs and flows between those who are waking up and conscious while others fall asleep and are unconscious.

‘The huntsmen are up in America and they are already past their first sleep in Persia'.

But perhaps the most famous example of Browne’s geographical symbolism occurs in Religio Medici,  where he inspirationally declares – ‘We carry within us, the wonders we seek without us.There is all Africa and her prodigies in us’. [12]  

The psychologist Carl Jung when hearing this quote while visiting Kenya, East Africa,  was impressed and immediately made note of it. Actually there’s a fascinating relationship between the famous Swiss psychologist Jung to Browne, both were doctors interested in  the interpretation of dreams, both read esoteric authors and both were interested in the geography of the mind, and mapping of the psyche’s contents. [13]

Together, Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus are Browne’s great work of psychology. Historical personages are employed by him as symbols in order to illustrate archetypes, that is, the first, original forms of the psyche as envisioned by Plato and Hermetic philosophers. Browne’s proto-psychology  attempts in Cyrus to delineate the archetype of the wise ruler through historical name symbolism, mentioning Moses, Solomon, Abraham, Alexandria the Great and the titular Cyrus as exemplars of the wise ruler. Women aren’t overlooked in his proto-psychology, the archetype of the 'Great Mother' is sketched through inclusion of the nurturing Old Testament matriarch Sarah, the Roman goddess Juno and the Egyptian goddess Isis.   

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With the colonization of South America by the Spanish and Portuguese in the seventeenth century, as well as European migration to North America, along with the opening of trading routes to the East Indies and China, an abundance of published reports upon exotic flora and fauna became available to the physician. Tobacco and the potato were early exports from America  to Europe throughout the 17th century.

It was the Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus (above) who encouraged his fellow physicians to experiment with substances from the vegetable, mineral and animal kingdoms in order to discover new medicines and new cures. We can be confident that Doctor Browne of Norwich was a committed follower of Paracelsus (1493-1541), not only are the 'Luther of Medicine''s bulky writings listed as once in his vast library but the very word used by Paracelsus to describe his distinctive kind of medical alchemy, known as spa-gyric ( meaning to separate and conjoin) can be seen inscribed upon Browne's coffin-plate, one half of which survives on display at Saint Peter Mancroft. The distinguished Canadian physician Sir William Osler (1849-1919) who was a great admirer of Browne commissioned a replica of this brass Coffin-plate. It can be seen at the Norfolk and Norwich Sir Thomas Browne Medical Library. [14]

 

A great example of Browne’s following Paracelsian medicine occurs in his assessment of so-called Peruvian Bark, the source of the drug known  today as Quinine.

A Jesuit priest is credited as among the first to observe that the Inca people use a diffusion of the bark from the cinchona tree to ease the symptoms of malaria. Indeed the original Inca word for the cinchona tree bark, 'quina' or 'quina-quina'  which roughly translates as 'bark of bark' or 'holy bark'. In 1638, the wife of a Peruvian viceroy used the bark to relieve her fever-induced symptoms during the onset of malaria. Her remedy was called a 'miracle cure'. By 1658 an English newspaper advertised -  'The excellent powder known by the name of 'Jesuits' powder' may be obtained from several London chemists'. 

Although Peruvian Bark was hailed as a successful medicine for malaria due to religious prejudice it was not officially recognised in England until 1677. Because it was known as 'Jesuits' Powder' it was tainted with associated with Catholicism. Even among the educated such as King Charles the Second, who took an active interest in the new scientific enquiry advanced by the Royal Society, was suspicious of 'Jesuit's Powder' because of its presumed association with Catholicism. However when the King suffered from a malarial fever he consulted a Mr Robert Talbor who was obliged to give the King the bitter bark decoction in great secrecy. The treatment completely relieved King Charles from malarial fever and he rewarded Talbor handsomely with a lifetimes membership of the newly-formed Royal Society. 

Several 17th century English physicians were interested in reports of the healing qualities of Peruvian Bark, especially those who lived in regions prone to the spread of malaria; East Anglia with its marshes, broads, large tracts of low-laying land and slow-flowing, stagnant stretches of water was an ideal habitat for the spread of the insect-borne virus. 

In correspondence to his youngest son nicknamed ‘Honest Tom’  Browne requested of him - 

'When you are at Cales, see if you can get a box of the Jesuits' powder at easier rate, and bring it in the bark, not in powder'. [15]

Browne’s request to obtain Jesuits' powder from a Continental source and not from London suggests he knew that the thriving trade in Peruvian Bark was vulnerable to dilution by apothecaries. His insistence on bark and not powder also suggests he was familiar with Peruvian Bark's composition. His assessment of Peruvian bark in an undated letter is considered one of the most detailed in British medical history-

Another new substance introduced to Europe, in this case through trade with China, was the root known as Ginseng.

  

Because the shape of the fleshy Ginseng root resembles the torso and limbs of a human, all kinds of medical and healing properties have been attributed to it. Widely cultivated in China for centuries Ginseng is used in Chinese medicine as a muscle relaxant.  In correspondence to his eldest son Edward, Dr. Browne wrote-

Deare Sonne, - You did well to observe Ginseng. All exotick rarities, especially of the east, the East India trade having encreased, are brought in England, and the profitt made therof. Of this plant Kircherus writeth in his China illustrata. [16] 

Today ginseng is scientifically recognised for its anti-carcinogenic and antioxidant properties

Throughout the 1650s and 1660s England found itself embroiled in conflict with the newly-emerging economic power and global trade of the Dutch Republic. British resentment towards the newly emerging European power is perceptively articulated by the art-historian Simon Schama, who noted of Johan De Witt, the chief negotiator for the peace treaty of the Second Anglo-Dutch War -

‘British enmity, on the other hand, he knew to be chronic and rooted in the very nature of the Republic’s existence, or at least  its prosperity. The problem, he supposed in common with many of his compatriots, was that, in matters of trade, the British were poor losers. Unable to match the Dutch in resourcefulness, industry, or technical ingenuity, they were prepared to bludgeon their way to wealth by the assertion of deliberately bellicose principles and by interfering with the freedom of trade. Peevish envy had turned them into a gang of unscrupulous ruffians who would stop at nothing to burglarize the Dutch warehouse, pretending all the time that some cherished issue of sovereignty had been infringed. [17] 

One of Browne’s greatest personal tragedies was hearing from the British Admiralty that his son Midshipman Thomas, ‘Honest Tom’ had been lost in action and presumed dead aged 21. 

A solitary piece by Browne, written for the entertainment of young Midshipman Tom survives. 'The Sea-battle’ is a vivid narration of an ancient world Sea-battle. Written in Latin its conclusion is a valuable insight on a primary cause of war. 

'The cause of this war was that of all wars, excess of prosperity. As wealth arises spirits rise, and lust and greed of power appear; thence men lose theiir sense of moderation, look with distaste on the prosperity of others, revolve disquiet in their mind, and throw overall settlement, for fear lest their enemies’ wealth be firmly established, they put their own to risk; and finally (as happens in human affairs) fall into slavery when they seek to impose it, and earnestly courting good fortune, experience disaster.' [18]

In his old age Browne seems to have taken an even greater interest in traveller’s accounts of exotic locations and newly discovered lands. Its testimony to his eldest daughter Elizabeth’s education, patience and devotion that her father recorded the following in his Commonplace notebooks –

‘Books which my daughter Elizabeth hath read unto me at nights till she read them all out -All the Turkish historie - All the history of China - All the travels  of Olerarius and Mandelslo -All the travels of Taverniere - All the Travels of Petrus della valle - All the travels of Vincent Le Blanc -All Sandys his travels  - All the travels of Pinto - All the travels of Gage - -All the history of Naples -All the history of Venice - Some hundreds of sermons. Many other Books, Treatises, discourses of several kinds. [19]

But perhaps the traveller Dr. Browne took the greatest interest in was his eldest son, Edward Browne (1644-1708). In 1668 Edward made a tour of Holland and Germany visiting museums, libraries, and churches. When later based in Vienna he made three long journeys, one to the mines of Hungary, one to Thessaly, another into Styria and Carinthia. Wherever Edward Browne travelled he acted as the dutiful eyes and ears of his father, who instructed him with advice such as- 

'Take notice of the various Animals, of places, beasts, fowles, & fishes; what the Danube affordeth, what depth, if conveniency offers, of mines, minerall works, Beside naturall things you may enquire into politicall & the government & state & subsistence of citties, townes & countries… observe how the Dutch make defences agaynst sea inundations…' [20] 

Also included among the travel books in Browne’s vast library is Thomas Fuller’s guide to the sights and places of the holy land of Palestine.  Fuller's book A Pis-pah Sight was important in its day and includes a detailed account of the geography and history of Palestine. Incidentally, it was Thomas Fuller in his Worthies of England who described the Norwich of Browne's day to be, 'either a city in an orchard, or an orchard in a city, so equal are houses and trees blended in it'. [21]

Another noteworthy geography book  once in Browne’s library is Athanasius Kircher’s China Illustrata. Dating from 1665 China illustrata was printed in Amsterdam. A work of encyclopaedic breadth, it included accurate maps as well as mythical creatures. It drew heavily on reports by Jesuit missionaries who worked in China. Kircher’s book remained the most informative source on China for over two centuries. [22]

In the above illustration Chinese botany and horticulture, costume and customs, along with architecture, are all faithfully recorded from an eyewitness account of a social gathering, a feast upon giant jackfruit.

It may well have been while turning his globe round sometime for his recreation that Browne was inspi to pen his ‘Prophecy concerning the future State of Several Nations’ . It was written after the Pandemic of Bubonic plague and the Great Fire of London in 1666 in which an estimated one hundred thousand people perished, some twenty percent of London’s entire population perished. In all probability it was inspired after he was shown a copy of the French doctor Nostradamus’s prophecies, the first translation  English into English in 1672. 

In his doggerel verse and parody of Nostradamus’s barely intelligible prophecies Browne makes some astounding predictions, which are based upon nothing more than the solid combination of rational conjecture and a deep knowledge of geography and history. In one of its seven rhyming couplets Browne questions the morality of the growing Slave-trade, long before its eventual abolition –

'When Africa shall no longer sell out its Blacks/to be Slaves and drudges to the American Tracts'. 

At a time when it was only a fledgling colony, Browne predicted that one day America would become Europe’s economic equal -

'When the New World shall the old invade/ nor count them their Lords but their Fellows in Trade'.

Remarkably, he also 'predicted’ that America would one day become a Nation which pursued happiness and engage in economic protectionism. 

'When America shall cease to send out its treasure/but employ it instead in American Pleasure’.  [23]

Browne's miscellaneous tract known as Museum Clausum his solitary work of fiction, an inventory of lost, rumoured and imaginary books, pictures and objects, also includes geographical speculations.  In the 16th century, the voyage of Hanno saw increased scholarly interest in an age when European exploration and navigation were flourishing. Already then, the extent of Hanno's voyage was debated. Browne makes mention of the explorer Hanno in Museum Clausum thus -

'A learned Comment upon the Periplus of Hanno the Carthaginian, or his Navigation upon the Western Coast of Africa, with the several places he landed at; what Colonies he settled, what Ships were scattered from his Fleet near the Equinoctial Line, which were not afterward heard of, and which probably fell into the Trade Winds, and were carried over into the Coast of America'. [24]

In all probability its through his friendship with the Icelandic Lutheran minister Theodor Johannsson that Browne also includes in Museum Clausum  - 

'A Snow Piece, of Land and Trees covered with Snow and Ice, and Mountains of Ice floating in the Sea, with Bears, Seals, Foxes, and variety of rare Fowls upon them'. [25]

Browne’s view of the world's future  was one which was, ‘not like to envy those that shall live in the next, much less three or four hundred Years hence, when no Man can comfortably imagine what Face this World will carry: [26]

He was aware of several disastrous scenarios which threaten life on Earth and knew that an increase in global traffic has medical implications, stating in A Letter to  a Friend- ‘New Discoveries of the Earth discover new Diseases'. He knew of  the threat of asteroids from outer Space impacting Earth, and wrote of ‘a mighty stone falling from the clouds which antiquity could believe Anaxagoras was able to foretell half a year before’. [27] And also made the sombre cosmological observation that - 'The created world is but a small parenthesis in Eternity.’ [28]

Before revealing what is arguably one of Browne’s greatest linguistic contributions to our modern age, its worthwhile remembering that while today he’s often promoted for his scientific profile, Browne’s worldview in essence was a synthesis of a deeply held Christian faith, adherence to hermetic philosophy and scientific empirical enquiry. There’s far greater value in reading Browne today for his moral, psychological, and spiritual insights than his 'occular observation' of the natural world.  As a doctor, it’s the geography of the mind which interests him most. He would with little doubt whole-heartedly agreed with Carl Jung’s assertion that- ‘Science and technology have indeed conquered the world, but whether the psyche has gained anything is another matter'. [29]

The Garden of Cyrus (1658) has a frontispiece ‘borrowed’ from a book by one of Browne's favourite authors, the Italian polymath Giambattista Della Porta (1535-1615). Its Latin quotation reads, ‘What is more beautiful than the Quincunx, which, no matter how you view it, present straight lines’. 

The full running title of The Garden of Cyrus includes what is one of Browne’s greatest neologisms, one which is highly relevant to our modern age, that of ‘Network.’ He probably encountered the word ‘network’ from reading of the Bible where its used to describe the decorative and structural design of Solomon’s temple. What is certain is that Browne was the first to write about net-like or reticulated structures in subjects as diverse as art, architecture, metalwork, botany, marine life and anatomy, in order to illustrate his concept. It’s a word which underscores his hermetic belief in the interconnectivity of  all life-forms in the world.  In the 19th century usage of the word ‘network’ gathered steam  after the new railway routes of England were described as a network. Today in our increasingly inter-connected world the word ‘Network’, with its strong geographical associations, has expanded to include social, transport, communication and technological meanings. 

Here in Norwich today we can take pride in the fact that it was once the home of a polymath mind who observed and wrote of Networks, introducing it, among many others into English language. The word Network is exemplary, not only of Sir Thomas Browne’s contribution to scientific vocabulary but also his mystical ‘Above Atlas’  worldview.

Notes

This is a revised version of a talk centred upon Thomas Browne's view of the world through the perspective of geography  which was delivered on October 21st 2025 on behalf of the Norfolk Heritage Centre.

[1]  Religio Medici Part 1 Section 11 

(The academic C.A. Patrides also used the the phrase 'Above Atlas his shoulders' as the title for his excellent introduction to Browne's major works for  Penguin publications in 1977). 

[2] Strabo 17 books of Geography ed. Isaac Casaubon Paris 1620. 1711 Sales Catalogue page 7 no.55

[3] Sales Catalogue 5 no. 1, 2 

[4] Religio Medici Part 2 Section 1

[5] Ibid.

[6] Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 6 On the River Nile

[7] Pseudodoxia Epidemica  Book  6 chapter 11

[8]  On Browne and the Kabbalah

[9] A Letter to a Friend

[10] The Paston Treasure - Spike Bucklow

[11] Nigredo (left) from Theatrum Chemicum Sales Catalogue  Page 25 no. 124 and  (right) Bettini Fucaria & Auctaria ad Apiria Philosophiae Mathematicae  S.c. page 28. no. 16

[12] Religio Medici Part 1 : 15

[13]  See Carl Jung and Sir Thomas Browne

[14] Paracelsus Opera S. C. page 22 no. 118

[15] Domestic Correspondence edited Keynes

[16] Ibid.

[17] Simon Schama  -The Embarrassment of Riches

[18] Miscellaneous Writings ed. Keynes

[19] Ibid.

[20] Edward Browne's travels are the subject of recent academic study by Anna Wyatt (See the excellent monograph 'wide excusions' by Anna Wyatt) which also stresses that Browne's daughters made no small contributions in assisting their father. 

[21]  Thomas Fuller's A Pisgah-sight, with maps  1650. 1711 Sales Catalogue p. 45  no. 73  

[22] China Illustrata  Amsterdam 1667 S. C . page 8 no. 93

[23]  Quotes from 'A Prophecy' Miscellaneous Tract 12

[24] Miscellaneous Tract 13

[25] Ibid

[26] A Letter to a Friend

[27] Museum Clausum

[28] Christian Morals Part 3 Section 29

[29] C.G. Jung - Collected Works vol. 10 'Civilization in Transition'.

 

Paris Syndrome

 

'He that is weak-legg'd must not fall in love with Rome, nor an infirm head with Venice or Paris'. - Sir Thomas Browne - 'A Letter to a Friend'

Paris syndrome is a sense of extreme disappointment and a severe form of culture shock experienced by some when visiting Paris. Its believed to be caused by factors such as language barrier, cultural differences, exhaustion and above all else, idealization. Symptoms of the syndrome can include - acute delusional states, hallucinations, feelings of persecution (perceptions of being a victim of prejudice, aggression and hostility from others) depersonalization, anxiety and psychosomatic manifestations such as dizziness, tachycardia, sweating and even vomiting. 

Statistically the condition affects very few people (00.00020% worldwide). However, Japanese  and Chinese tourists are vulnerable to this psychiatric condition, probably because Paris has been heavily romanticized in both Japanese and Chinese culture. 

The Japanese psychiatrist Hiroaki Otaka is credited with coining the term in the 1980s and he published a book of the same name in 1991. A spokesman for the Japanese embassy in Paris in 2006 stated, "there are around 20 cases a year of the syndrome and it has been happening for several years". Jean-Francois Zhou, president of the association of Chinese travel agencies in France, said "Chinese people romanticize France, they know about French literature and French love stories... But some of them end up in tears, swearing they'll never come back." [1].

With his deep interest in unusual psychic phenomena and introduction of  medical words such as 'pathology' and 'hallucination' among others, the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) was well qualified to identify the phenomena of Paris syndrome. 

Browne makes allusion to geographical psychopathology in A Letter to a Friend (circa 1657 pub. post. 1690). Written as consolation following the premature death of the English Cavalier poet Richard Lovelace (below) his witty and profound epistle is replete with reflections on medical case-histories.

                                                     

  Richard Lovelace (1617-57)

Within the following paragraph of A Letter to a friend Browne names the geographic locations of Norfolk, Portugal, Austria, Vienna, Rome, Paris, Greenland, the Atlas Mountains of North Africa and the Antipodes. He also defines the ozone-rich air of East Anglia as 'Aerial Nitre', introduces the word 'migrant' into English language (from the Latin verb migrāre, meaning 'to move'), refers to the proto-psychology of  Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370 BCE) in which those said to be choleric were believed to possess fiery energy and passion, and advises against 'infirm heads' that is, impressionable minds from visiting Venice or Paris. Browne's proposal that specific geographical locations can affect physical and mental health concludes with speculation on avian migratory routes.

'He was fruitlessly put in hope of advantage by change of Air, and imbibing the pure Aerial Nitre of these Parts; and therefore being so far spent, he quickly found Sardinia in Tivoli, [2] and the most healthful Air of little effect..... He is happily seated who lives in Places whose Air, Earth, and Water, promote not the Infirmities of his weaker Parts, or is early removed into Regions that correct them. He that is tabidly inclined, were unwise to pass his days in Portugal: Cholical Persons will find little Comfort in Austria or Vienna: He that is weak-legg'd must not be in Love with Rome, nor an infirm Head with Venice or Paris. Death hath not only particular Stars in Heaven [3] but malevolent Places on Earth, which single out our Infirmities, and strike at our weaker Parts; in which Concern, passager and migrant Birds have the great Advantages; who are naturally constituted for distant Habitations, whom no Seas nor Places limit, but in their appointed Seasons will visit us from Greenland and Mount Atlas, and as some think, even from the Antipodes'.[4]

Notes

[1]  from Wikipedia

[2] The Roman poet Martial, Epigrams Book 4, Epigram 60, line 5 reads - "Cum mors venerit, in medio Tibure Sardinia est" which translates as "When death comes, Sardinia is in the middle of Tibur" or more poetically, "When death comes, Sardinia is at Tibur". Browne's line illustrates the concept of distant or impossible places appearing close when one is dying. 

[3] Browne's stated belief that, 'Death has not only Particular Stars in Heaven' persists, albeit unconsciously, in the present-day usage of the word 'disaster', the root of the word  originating from the Italian of disastero meaning an ‘ill-starred event’. (The prefix dis- signifying "apart," "asunder," or "away," and a negative force, in combination with astro meaning 'star' from the Latin of astrum). 

[4] Antipodes - relating to Australia and New Zealand. 

See also

Mozart in Paris

Doctor Browne and the elephant

Elephants are mentioned in each of Doctor Thomas Browne's major literary works. A little-known notebook description highlights his zoological interest in elephants, while his proto-archaeological speculations on bones in Urn-Burial along with his notebook entry on Fossil remains in Norfolk casts new light on the skeleton of a prehistoric elephant excavated at West Runton in 1995.

The newly qualified physician first declared an admiration of elephants in his spiritual testament Religio Medici (1643) remarking - 'ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature, Whales, Elephants, Dromedaries and Camels; these I confess are the Colossus and Majestick pieces of her hand'. Elsewhere the animal-loving doctor defends the elephant's appearance, objecting, 'I cannot tell by what Logick we call a Toad, a Bear, or an Elephant ugly'. [1]

In his subsequent publication, Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646) Browne methodically refutes numerous folk-lore beliefs and superstitions, including the misapprehension that the elephant has no joints. Browne's encyclopaedic work of scientific journalism consists of seven books in total. Many of its individual chapters, in particular those on animals in book three, are among the most readable and entertaining of all the learned doctor's writings. Indeed, the Argentinean author Jorge Louis Borges (1899-1986) consulted book three of Pseudodoxia Epidemica extensively with its at turns erudite, pedantic and witty discussion on whether creatures such as the basilisk, salamander, unicorn, phoenix, gryphon and mermaid truly exist, when compiling his Book of Imaginary Creatures (1967).

Book three of Pseudodoxia titled Of divers popular and received Tenents concerning Animals, which examined, prove either false or dubious opens with a refutation of the belief that the elephant has no joints. Doctor Browne first calls upon his capacious and retentive memory, referencing the Roman historian Suetonius to inform his reader that-

‘Elephants have been instructed to walk on ropes, in public shows before the people’, as well as the historian's recording of  'that memorable show of Grammaticus wherein twelve Elephants danced unto the sound of music'. 

Following discussion of the mechanics of motion in two and four legged creatures, introducing the words 'cylindrical' and 'locomotion' into English language while doing so, and having argued of the necessity of joints from his anatomical studies, Browne credulously notes, 'some Elephants have not only written whole sentences,... but have also spoken'. He then proposes that because elephants possess the necessary organs for speech, namely lips, teeth and chops, they, ‘might not be taught to speak, or become imitators of speech like Birds’. [2]

A detail from Peter Rodulfo's As the elephant laughed 

Finally, and perhaps frustratingly to impatient readers, having consulted at great length two of his three determiners to acquire truth, namely, past authority and reason, Browne calls upon the primary source of his empirically-based science, 'occular observation', and remembers seeing an elephant in real life-

‘whereof not many years past, we have had the advantage in England, by an Elephant shewn in many parts thereof, not only in the posture of standing, but kneeling and lying down'. [3]

Browne's zoology, the study of animals, is exemplified in a little-known notebook description of an elephant in which he references his favourite zoologist of antiquity, Aristotle. Noting with a precise and extensive vocabulary the elephant's anatomy, age, emotions, welfare and diet he uses the sense of touch to describe its skin. The size and roundness of elephant dung reminds him of his favourite pastime, the game of bowls. Browne's notebook entry on the elephant is worthy of  full quotation.

'The trunck is lithe, tortil, flexible, extensible, contractile, butt when hee shrinks it up as in Anger, it becommeth short and as stiff and hard as a stake. 

The 2 nostrills are plaine, and there is a hard tip at the upper end of the extremity of his trunck which helps to hold the faster. 

Hee sleepes not with his trunck extended and hanging at length, butt bended & somewhat rolled about or neere his mouth, for the better security thereof from flies or anything that might gett into it. His tongue is short not large, & seemes as it were tongue tyed, so that hee cannot putt out the tongue. However when yong it makes a shift to suck, for it sucketh with the mouth not with the trunck. Hath very thinne & ill decernible lipps. 

The teeth are very large 4 in number. The two large teeth somewhat reflecting upward: these are for his armes of defense and offence and help him, when hee kneeles or ariseth. The females as Aristotle sayeth, have them straight or bending downward, which afford them the better help and support when they are great with yongue. 

Hayres under his chinne like a beard, some long black hayres about the ridge of his head and neck; about the bottom of his tayle which are bigge and harsh & stiffe like sticks. 2 Bunches like papps in the forepart of the breast by the arm pitts, and as Aristotle sayeth juxta pectus potius quam in pectore. Five kind of hoofes in each foot exceeding hard, but they pare them not. Hee riseth like a horse with his foreleggs first, not like a cowe. 

Hee breakes wind often backward; coughs sometimes, snorts not, vomits not, sweates much about the pappes upon travell. Sleepes about 5 howers in a night: hee lyeth upon strawe and in very cold wether they cover him up with it at night. Being butt 8 yeares old they allowed him a pecke & a quarter of oates every morning and evening besides haye and bread when they showed him, wch came to 3 or 4 penny loaves a daye. Dungs in roundish lumps about the bignesse of bowlls. 

He will take water sometimes & swimme, whereby hee refreseth and suppleyth his hard drye skinne and will suck up water in his trunck and spirt it about his body, and so moystens his skinne, wch is rugged and hard and as it were channel'd, and feels like rough tanned hides. [4] 

Elephants are mentioned in Browne's discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658). Appropriate to its themes of Time and Death allusion is made in Urn-Burial to the elephant's graveyard and its ability for 'sepulture'. In The Garden of Cyrus the potency of the Quincunx pattern when employed in brick-wise formation (2:1:2) in ancient military strategy is such that the archetypal configuration effectively, 'defeated the mischief intended by the elephants'. The elephant may thus be considered as a 'conjoyning' symbol which unites the two discourses highly polarised themes, imagery and respective truth. 

Just as Urn-Burial features Browne's interest in archaeology and The Garden of Cyrus with its mention of bees and butterflies, fish, birds, snakes and whales his interest in zoology, so too his study of elephants was both zoological and archaeological, reflecting his enquiries in the divided worlds of the living and the dead.

The philosophical discourse Urn-Burial (1658) was initially inspired by an archaeological find, as its author informs his reader -

'In a Field of old Walsingham, not many months past, were digged up between forty and fifty Urns, deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, nor far from one another'. 

It is however not urns but bones which are alluded to most in Urn-Burial (over fifty times) including a remarkable passage which anticipates and influences archaeological interpretative insights to the present day. 

'It is no impossible Physiognomy to conjecture at fleshy appendencies; and after what shape the muscles and carnous parts might hang in their full consistences. A full spread Cariola shews a well-shaped horse behind, handsome formed sculls, give some analogie of fleshy resemblance. A criticall view of bones makes a good distinction of sexes....... Other parts make out their comproportions, and inferences upon whole or parts. And since the dimensions of the head measure the whole body, and the figure thereof gives conjecture of the principall faculties; Physiognomy outlives our selves, and ends not in our graves'. [5]

Browne's advocation of a forensic-like analysis of bones, of how they can be indicative of 'fleshy resemblance' in gender, ancestry and proportion, anticipates modern-day osteology (the study of bones) as well as modern-day illustrative realization of archaeological sites and artefacts. His proto-archaeological speculations acquire significance in light of the discovery and subsequent excavation of a near complete mammoth skeleton at West Runton on the Norfolk coast in 1995. 

Its worthwhile remembering that much of the Norfolk coastline was once part of a prehistoric forest bed which was formed between 780,000 to 450,000 years ago. Known as the geological era of the Cromerian Stage, during the last ice-age or Pleistocene, the Cromerian Interglacial is the benchmark that all European countries use when studying their own geological deposits. 

Browne's early account of coastal erosion and speculative analysis in Fossil Remains in Norfolk is significant in relation to archaeological discovery at West Runton. His description of 'one side of a lower jaw containing very large teeth petrified, far exceeding the teeth of the biggest ox' could be any number of prehistoric creatures including the Auroch, an extinct species of cattle, the last of which died in the early 17th century. 

'This bone was found, about 2 year past by Winterton, on the sea shore in Norfolk. The cliff had been much broken by high tides & the rage of the sea, many hundred loads falling down as it often doth upon this coast, the cliffs being not rock butt earth. Upon the same coast, butt at some miles distance, divers great bones are said to have been found, & I have seen one side of a lower jaw containing very large teeth petrified, far exceeding the teeth of the biggest ox. It was found after a great flood near to the cliff, some thousand loads of earth being broken down by the rage of the sea. That it came not out of the sea it might bee conjectured because it was found so far from it, & from the colour, for if out of the sea it would have been whiter. When the outward crust is taken of, it answers the graine of the bones of whales & other cetaceous animals, comparing it with a piece of whales scull which I have by mee'. [6]

The West Runton skeleton is part of the elephantidae family, which includes both elephants and mammoths. The expert ostologist and archaeological illustrator Ms. J. Curl helpfully explains the sometimes complicated classification which exists between elephants and mammoths thus -

"The West Runton Mammoth (c.800,000 BCE) was called an elephant originally, and was an ancestor to the Woolly Mammoth (c.50,000 BCE to 15,000 BCE here in UK). Both terms are correct and confusing, especially for those working on them. The West Runton Mammoth was mainly a warm phase beast and more likely to be like an elephant, but that individual  was close to a colder phase, so he was probably much hairier than most elephants today'.

Ms. J. Curl cleaning the molar teeth of the West Runton mammoth 1995

The West Runton mammoth skeleton is the best example of the species Mammuthus trogontherii to be unearthed so far, being 85% complete. Previous finds include two partial skeletons found in Germany and Russia, both of which were only about 10 to 15% complete. The mammoth was male, stood some 4 metres (13 ft) at the shoulder and would have weighed about 10 tonnes (11 short tons). This is twice the weight of the modern African elephant Loxodonta africana. [7]

Its recorded that at sometime or another Browne acquired an elephant's leg-bone for his anatomical studies and the largest of all land animals continued to interest him late in his life. His solitary work of fiction, Museum Clausum (circa 1673) a bizarre catalogue of imaginary, rumoured and lost books, pictures and rarities includes the landscape painting of - 

'A Snow Piece, of Land and Trees covered with Snow and Ice, and Mountains of Ice floating in the Sea, with Bears, Seals, Foxes and variety of rare Fowls upon them'. 

Also in Browne's surreal inventory Museum Clausum (the Closed Museum) perhaps inspired from an antique coin once in his collector's cabinet, there's the amusing thumb-nail sketch of-

'An Elephant dancing upon the Ropes with a Negro Dwarf upon his Back'. [9] 

Julius Caesar's coin issued in 49 BCE to commemorate his victory over Pompey.

See also

*  Browne's Zoology -  Spiders - Ostrich - Pelican - Vulture

* Thomas Browne's writings are on-line at the University of Chicago site maintained by James Eason including On the elephant and Museum Clausum.

 * Peter Rodulfo's 'As the elephant laughed'. A panorama of evolution

Notes

[1] Religio Medici Part 1: 15 and 16.

[2] Suetonius The Twelve Caesars trans. Robert Graves Penguin (Nero para. 11 and Galba para. 6)

[3]  Book 3 chapter 1 Pseudodoxia Epidemica ed. Robin Robbins pub. OUP 1981

[4] British Museum MS Sloane 1848 reproduced in Miscellaneous writings ed. Keynes 1946

[5] Urn-Burial Chapter 3

[6] British Museum Sloane MS 1882 reproduced in Miscellaneous writings ed. Keynes 1946

[7]  Ms. J. Curl to whom the author is indebted for her professional knowledge in relation to Browne.

[8] Larkin, Nigel. "The West Runton Elephant" Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service.

[9] Miscellaneous Tract 13  reproduced in Miscellaneous writings ed. Keynes 1946

[10] Typically Browne has embellished an original image with his own imaginative addition, placing 'a Negro Dwarf' upon the back of a tight-rope walking elephant. Modern numismatic scholarship now believes that Caesar's coin which was minted in 49 BCE to celebrate his defeat of his political rival Pompey depicts an elephant trampling and crushing a snake underfoot.  Looking closely at this coin (above) it clearly does depict a snake, which is often likened symbolically to a treacherous enemy, and the true statement of Julius Caesar's coin. A tightrope walking elephant is simply too frivolous a subject for a dictator to identify with !

Books Consulted

*Jorge Luis Borges -The Book of Imaginary Creatures (1967) pub. Penguin 1974 

*Suetonius The Twelve Caesars trans. Robert Graves pub. Penguin 1976

* Pseudodoxia Epidemica ed. Robin Robbins pub. OUP 1981

* Miscellaneous writings  of Sir Thomas Browne  ed. Keynes pub. Faber and Faber 1946

Images 

From top to bottom -

*  Illustration - Weston Runton female mammoth with offspring by Ms. J. Curl.

* Painting - A detail from Peter Rodulfo's 'As the elephant laughed' (2012).

*  Artistic realization of the West Runton elephant by Ms. J. Curl.

*  Photo - Ms. J. Curl cleaning the West Runton mammoth 1995. Photo credit ITV News.

* Photo:  Roman coin reverse.

The joy and alchemical play of jigsaws

During the pandemic of 2019-2022 many people worldwide discovered the joy of jigsaws. Faced with restrictions in social activities and confined indoors during lockdowns, the opportunity to escape from uncontrollable events and immerse oneself in a puzzle enticed many. Consequently,  the past two years has seen a boom in the manufacture and sale of jigsaws globally in order to supply an unprecedented demand.

It was the Englishman John Spilsbury (1739-69) a London cartographer and engraver who is credited with inventing the jigsaw puzzle. Spilsbury created the first puzzle sometime in the 1760's as an educational tool. He affixed a map  of the world to wood and hand cut each country out using a marquetry saw. Spilsbury's 'dissected maps' were used as teaching aids for geography.  The technical name of the jigsaw enthusiast as a dissectologist originates from Spilsbury's 'dissected maps' as does dissectology, the study of jigsaws. Because the word 'dissection' has an unfortunate association to surgery, the Anglo-Saxon of  'jigsaw builder' is preferred nomenclature here.

Scenic postcard views of mountains and lakes along with lighthouses, windmills and castles have long been the staple diet of jigsaws. The fantasy castle of King Ludwig of Bavaria, Neuschwanstein Schloss, the artistic inspiration for the Disney Castle logo is often reproduced as a jigsaw puzzle, as are the romantic destinations of Paris and Venice. Michael Ryba's interpretation of King Ludwig's castle and relationship to the German composer Richard Wagner is wittily expressed in the Heye brand 2000 piece puzzle entitled 'Bavaria' (below).

Established in Poland in 1985 the Trefl brand of puzzles have a matted finish with chunky, tactile pleasing pieces. Below-  Dolomite mountain range, Italy.  Trefl 500 pieces

Its good to see that the Falcon brand includes a puzzle of the Norfolk Broads, an extensive network of shallow lakes and rivers which are famously alluded to in the David Bowie song, 'Life on Mars' (1973) - 'See the mice in their million  hordes/From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads'. Norfolk-based jigsaws include - Cromer beach and pier, Norwich market place, windmills (below) and Sandringham House, residence of Queen Elizabeth II  (1926-2022).  

The earliest jigsaw puzzles were hand-cut from wood and expensive to make, needing skilled workmanship for each individual jigsaw. The 20th century saw the rise of manufactured, mass-produced cardboard puzzles. The popularity of the jigsaw puzzle during the 1930's Depression as an inexpensive form of entertainment can be gauged from the novelist Daphne du Maurier's best-selling gothic love story Rebecca (1938). In du Maurier's fictitious first-person narration, jigsaws are flexible as metaphors, expressive of comprehension and error, along with revealing identity. 

In  Rebecca Du Maurier's anonymous narrator states-

'What he has told me and all that has happened will tumble into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle'.

'The jig-saw pieces came tumbling thick and fast upon me'.

'They were all fitting into place, the jig-saw pieces. The odd strained shapes that I had tried to piece together with my fumbling fingers and they had never fitted'.

'The jig-saw pieces came together piece by piece, and the real Rebecca took shape and form before me'.[1]

Georges Perec (1936-82) was a film maker, essayist and author of the acclaimed novel 'La vie, mode d'emploi' (Life: A user's manual). Jigsaws are integral to the very structure as well as the central story of Perec's novel. Its narrative moves from one room to another, the reader learning about the residents of each room, or its past residents, or about someone they have come into contact with, thus building a picture of an instant in time. La Vie, mode d'emploi  is an extraordinary novel, containing painstakingly detailed descriptions and hundreds of individual stories. 

The central story of Perec's Post-modern masterpiece concerns itself with the Englishman Bartlebooth who devotes ten years acquiring the skill of painting in water-colours, then ten more years painting every harbour and port he visits while on a world-cruise. Each of Bartlebooth's finished water-colours are methodically dated and posted to a jigsaw maker in Paris. Upon returning to Paris, he devotes the remaining years of his life attempting to complete every jigsaw made from his paintings in precisely the same chronological order of his travels. 

In the preamble to La vie mode d'emploi Georges Perec makes a pertinent point about jigsaws, namely, that its how a jigsaw is cut which makes it easy or difficult to complete. 

'Contrary to a widely and firmly held belief, it does not matter whether the initial image is easy (or something taken to be easy - a genre scene in the style of Vermeer, for example, or a colour photograph of an Austrian castle) or difficult (a Jackson Pollock, a Pisarro, or the poor paradox of a blank puzzle), its not the subject of the picture, or the painter's technique, which makes a puzzle more or less difficult, but the greater or lesser subtlety of the way it has been cut; and an arbitrary cutting pattern will necessarily produce an arbitrary degree of difficulty, ranging from the extreme of easiness - for edge pieces, patches of light, well-defined objects, lines, transitions -to the tiresome awkwardness of all the other pieces (cloudless skies, sand, meadow, ploughed land, shaded areas etc.) [2] 

Its interesting to note that the logo of the world-wide collaborative project known as Wikipedia consists of an incomplete globe made of jigsaw pieces. The incomplete sphere symbolizes the room to add new knowledge as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. 

Many sub-genres of puzzles exist. Sentimental and kitsch depictions of puppies, kittens, cakes and cottages abound in jigsaw reproductions as well as art-works such as Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus', Monet's 'Poppies'  and Bosch's 'Garden of Heavenly Delights'. The  primitive artwork style of Charles Wysocki (1928 - 2002) whose work depicts an idealized version of American life of yesteryear and Thomas Kinade (1958 - 2012) a painter of pastoral and idyll scenes with warm, glowing colouration (Gibsons brand) are both well-loved by American jigsaw builders. Puzzles composed purely of brand labels are also popular in America, a  long lasting aftereffect of the 1950's when advertising companies gave away free puzzles with their products.

Featuring the comic art-work of Graham Thompson (b. 1940), the so-called Wasgij puzzle (the word 'jigsaw' spelt backwards) challenges the jigsaw builder to have eyes at the back of their head in order to construct a mirror or 'what-happened-next' picture of the action depicted, a far more difficult task than simply referencing a box top picture.  

Remembering the trauma of the world-wide health crisis in the past two years its little wonder that comic jigsaws retain their popularity. The prolific Dutch cartoonist Jan van Haasteren (b. Schiedam, Netherlands 1936) has now supplied Jumbo puzzles with over 200 titles. Haasteren's artwork is instantly recognisable, not least for the same characters re-appearing in his puzzles. These include - a crook and tax official, Police Officers,  a mother-in-law, Santa Claus, a cat and mouse, an octopus and crab, along with his trade mark, a Shark fin. 

In Haasternen's 'Winter Sports' (below) various activities associated with snow and ice are depicted.  Its a typically busy, crowded scene of masterful draughtsmanship,  reminiscent of a canvas by Breughel. 

The  British artist Mike Jupp (b.1948) is a best-seller of the Gibsons brand of jigsaws, a British family business since 1919. Mike Jupp became a freelance artist in 1974, moving into film and TV design in 1980. He spent some time in Holland before he relocated to America where he became a storyboard artist and scriptwriter. In the late 1990's Jupp applied his talent and sense of humour to creating designs for jigsaws. Jupp delights puzzlers with his I Love series, where he captures the comical and silly side of everyday life. Almost every inch of I Love Spring includes some kind of cheeky humour. There can also be seen - an International Worker's march, Druids, a Maypole dance, Morris men, a Wedding and Hell's Angels. In the foreground of I Love Spring (below) a young man falls off his ladder when spying a girl in a bubble bath. 

The French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Loup (1936-2015) studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Lyon and worked as a cartoonist in Paris from 1969 until his death. A prolific contributor to a wide variety of magazines and publications, Loup was also an architect and a jazz pianist. In his 'Apocalypse 2000' (below) Loup humorously mocks the fears and apprehensions associated with millenarian expectation including, an alien spaceship invasion, a falling meteorite, an earthquake and a plague of frogs. Many differing reactions to the World's End can be seen - Holding a playing card a man prepares to commit suicide, a woman prays on her knees, a priest thrusts a crucifix at a hairy demon who rolls around laughing at him, Hare Krishna followers chant, others are seen screaming or running away. Drinkers in a bar look on, slightly perturbed at all they're witnessing. 

The cartoonist Loup along with the Argentinian cartoonist Guillermo Mordillo (1932-2019) were both widely published throughout the 1970's. Their artwork is featured on a handful of Heye puzzles, one of the most exciting of all puzzle manufacturers in the artistic scope and range of their jigsaws.   

Recent study at the University of Michigan, USA, has found that jigsaws improve visual-spatial reasoning along with IQ. They also help reduce memory, relieve stress and lower blood pressure and heart-rate. Scientific research also suggests that the simple satisfaction of placing a puzzle piece in its correct place, releases a micro-dose of the 'feelgood' neuro-chemical' dopamine which is associated with well-being and happiness. An even bigger 'feel good' chemical reward is released upon completion of a puzzle. 

Long acknowledged as sharpening cognitive faculties through the correct identification of shape and colour, requiring hand and eye coordination through dedicated sessions of time, jigsaws teach and develop patience, concentration and logical thinking. When finally completed they reward their builder with a  real sense of achievement and improved self-esteem. Whether of kittens or puppies, a favourite place visited, a comic cartoon or Leonardo da Vinci's 'The Last Supper', a completed jigsaw remains the builder's very own accomplishment. In an age of ubiquitous electronic entertainments its an achievement  which is made through finely-tuned hand and eye coordination in conjunction with the much under-valued virtue of patience. 

       The alchemical play of jigsaws

Constructing a jigsaw may be viewed as a reduced or simplified form of the alchemical opus. To begin with,  the jigsaw builder, just like the alchemist,  dedicates themselves for an unknown duration of time, often in solitude, sometimes facing self-doubt or a sense of futility, even risking sanity, in order to complete a 'Great Work'. Hope and despair are experienced by both alchemist and jigsaw builder alike in their endeavour to make the invisible become visible. 

Ancient alchemical texts frequently warn the adept of the many difficulties and dead-ends to beware of during the 'Great Work'; so too the jigsaw builder can expect setbacks, even disaster if their work-space is tampered or interfered with. The vision shared by alchemist and jigsaw builder upon completion of their task is one of unity, created from the chaos of the massa confusa or unsorted heap of puzzle pieces.

It was the seminal Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung (1875-1961) who first identified distinct similarities between alchemy and the creative process. Jung's observations on the spiritual and psychological meaning of creativity are applicable to the artist more than jigsaw builder, nevertheless his following remark invites comparison with jigsaw building - 

'the first part was completed when the various components separated out from the chaos of the massa confusa were brought back to unity in the albedo and "all become one". [3]

The dark, initial state which the alchemist called the nigredo stage was also known as the massa confusa or chaos, the not yet differentiated, but capable of differentiation disorder which the adept gradually reduced to order and unity. Hidden and invisible within the chaos of the massa confusa lay the vision of unity which the alchemist aspired to make visible. For the jigsaw builder, contained within the thousand piece heap, which on first sight can arouse despair, there lays invisible within, the vision of a completed jigsaw.

The alchemical discourse The Garden of Cyrus by the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) has a number of associations to the jigsaw.  Long viewed as one of the most difficult puzzles in the entire canon of English literature, most readers of The Garden of Cyrus have struggled and floundered attempting to piece it together, thwarted by the combination of its esoteric theme, dense symbolism and the near breathless haste of its communication. Very few have ever completed Browne's jigsaw puzzle of an essay, yet alone stepped back upon completion to admire the beauty of its hermetic vision.

Composed from numerous 'stand-alone' notebook jottings, not unlike solitary pieces of a puzzle, Browne cites evidence of the inter-related symbols of  Quincunx pattern,  number 5 and  letter  X  in topics equal in diversity as jigsaw subject-matter, including- Biblical scholarship, Egyptology, comparative religion, mythology, ancient world plantations, gardening, generation, geometry, germination, heredity, the Archimedean solids, sculpture, numismatics, architecture, paving-stones, battle-formations, optics, zoology, ornithology, the kabbalah, astrology and astronomy, in order to prove  to his reader the interconnectivity of all life. Predominate themes of the discourse include - Order, Number, Design and Pattern, all of which are related to jigsaws.

Fascinated by all manner of puzzle throughout his life, whether hieroglyph, riddle, anagram or mystery in nature,  Browne in The Garden of Cyrus connects the quincunx pattern found in mineral crystals in the earth below to star constellations in the heavens above; thus a primary objective of  his discourse  ultimately is none other than advocation of intelligent design. In Browne's hermetic vision, the cosmos itself is a fully interlocking jigsaw, designed through the 'higher mathematics' of the 'supreme Geometrician' i.e. God.

If anything however, its perhaps more the art and design of the jigsaw cutter which Browne celebrates. He's credited by the Oxford Dictionary as the first writer to use the word 'Network' in an artificial context in the English language, (in the full running title of the discourse, The Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincuncial Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the ancients, artificially, naturally, mystically considered).  The frontispiece to Browne's discourse resembles some kind of grid cutter for an unusual jigsaw or a gaming board for Go or Backgammon.

Its Latin quotation reads -'What is more beautiful than the Quincunx, which, however you view it, presents straight lines'.

Browne also mentions various leisure-time activities in his discourse. Archery, backgammon, chess, skittles and knuckle stones are all fleetingly alluded to as examples of pleasure and play. 

Upon completion of a puzzle, sooner or later its broken into separate pieces and returned to its box awaiting to be completed once more,  a cycle not unlike the cycle of birth, death and rebirth  or 'Eternal Return' which alchemists alluded to in their writings, including Thomas Browne at the conclusion of his discourse.  

'All things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again; according to the ordainer of order and mystical Mathematicks of the City of Heaven'.

One particular jigsaw shape  of interest to Browne in his quinary quest is the so-called 'dancing man'  or 'T-man' piece with its 4 + 1 structure (below left). Its a reduced form of ' Square man' by the Roman architect Vitruvius of the human form as drawn by the Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci in his Vitruvian man (below, right) which is alluded to in The Garden of Cyrus thus -  

'Nor is the same observable only in some parts, but in the whole body of man, which upon the extension of arms and legs, doth make out a square whose intersection is at the genitals. To omit the phantastical Quincunx in Plato of the first Hermaphrodite or double man, united at the Loynes, which Jupiter divided. [4]

Adding in a little referenced footnote - 'elegantly observable in the Mesopotamian silhouette figurines, not unlike conjoyning tiles found in parlour amusements amongst us'. [5] 

One is tempted to speculate that Thomas Browne's allusion to 'conjoyning tiles' may be some kind of precursor to the jigsaw puzzle, pre-dating fellow Englishman John Spilsbury's 'dissecting maps' by a full century. 

In any case, the technical inventiveness in manufacture, the wide variety of artistic subject-matter and development of skills such as shape identification along with the therapeutic qualities of jigsaw puzzling would doubtless have been approved of by Browne.  With his predilection for the microscopic in nature one imagines the seventeenth century physician-philosopher engaged in the challenge of constructing a miniature jigsaw, employing his 'occular observation' with tweezers and magnifying glass in order to construct  it ! 

Photos

Top - Wooden 60 piece puzzle of elephant. Wentworth. Completed  January 2022 

'Bavaria' Ryba, 2000 pieces Heye. Completed July 2022

Dolomite Mountains, Italy, Trefl 500 pieces, Completed  March 2022

Norfolk Windmill and river Falcon 500 pieces. Completed Feb. 2021. 

Winter Sports by Jan van Haasteren Jumbo 1000 pieces. Completed  February 2022

'I Love Spring' by Mike Jupp Gibsons 1000 pieces. Completed May 2022

'Apocalypse 2000' by Jean Jacques Loup Falcon 1000 pieces. Completed  June 2022

Colour Wheel. 1000 pieces. Made in China. Completed September 2022

The Table of the Muses.  USA Springbok 1968. Completed November 2022

N.B. The Wikipedia  entry on puzzles has numerous links to articles about jigsaws.

Notes

[1]  Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier  First published by Victor Gollancz 1938 chapter 20.

[2] George Perec  La vie mode d'emploi  First published in France in 1978 by Hachette/ Collection P.O.L. Paris and in Great Britain in 1987 by Collins Harvill 

[3] C.G. Jung Collected Works  Vol 14.  Mysterium Coniunctionis  An enquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy translated by R. F. C. Hull 1963 paragraph 388

[4]  Thomas Browne : Selected Writings edited by Kevin Killeen Oxford University Press 2014 . Quote from chapter 3 of The Garden of Cyrus 

[5]  An unpublished footnote from a source equal in veracity to Fragment on Mummies.