Lalandes ‘Voyage de Hollande’. Het reisverslag van een astronoom, 1774

Abstract

Lalandes ‘Voyage de Hollande’. The itinerary of an astronomer, 1774. In 1774, the French astronomer Joseph Jerome Lefrancois de Lalande (1732–1807) visited the Dutch Republic to plea for a greater role of astronomy in navigation. At that time his Astronomie was translated into Dutch. A handwritten travelogue of his visit is preserved in the Bibliotheque de l’Institut de France in Paris. It is a brief, but fairly complete description of his journey, in which Lalande gives an impression of his visit to the cities, scientists, instrument makers and other – for the greater part – very prominent people of the Dutch Republic. This paper discusses Lalande’s experiences in the Netherlands. It shows that Lalande’s Voyage de Hollande is a unique testimony, showing how a foreign scholar experienced the Dutch Republic at the end of the eighteenth century and how he was received as scientific celebrity by the Dutch social upper class.