Online edition of Jacob Bernoulli's Reisebüchlein
The Bernoulli-Euler Society is making another document from the Bernoulli legacy available online. Jacob Bernoulli's Reisebüchlein, which contains his notes on his travels in Switzerland, France, the Netherlands and England.
Scanned images of the Reisbüchlein have been available on the e-manuscripta platform since 2022; a typewritten transcription had already been produced in the 1950s by Ruth Eglinger for the Bernoulli Edition in Basel. Dr Sepideh Alassi and her team at the Digital Humanities Lab at the University of Basel are now presenting a digital edition of the document. The online edition of Jacob Bernoulli's travel booklet from the years 1676–1683 can be found on the new Bernoulli Euler Digital platform.
Jacob Bernoulli (1654–1705) completed his theological studies at the University of Basel at the age of 21 and was ordained as a Reformed pastor in March 1676. In August of the same year, he went travelling; he spent a large part of the following seven years on the road. He worked as a private tutor in Geneva, south-west France and the Netherlands; in 1682 he returned to Basel, travelling across Germany with a detour to London. The following summer, he undertook a ‘walking tour’ through Switzerland before beginning his academic career as a scientist: from 1687 until his death, he held the chair of mathematics in his home town and was one of the leading researchers in this field.
An autograph document preserved in Bernoulli's estate in the Basel University Library tells of his ‘travelling years’: a small-format Reisbüchlein of 195 pages. In it, Bernoulli describes from day to day where and how he travelled: on horseback, in a stagecoach, on boats or on foot. In the places where he stayed for a while – from a few days to over a year – he made notes on locations and people, sights and habits, accommodation and travelling expenses. He made part of his living from the compensation he received for his work as a tutor: In Geneva, he taught a young lady who had gone blind as a result of an illness; in a small town in Limousin, he educated the children of a local noble family and acted as a pastor; later, his pupils included the son of a lawyer in Bordeaux and a young man from Berne in Leiden. The people Jacob Bernoulli met often made an entry in his Album amicorum.