Little Dutch Girl

So I'm looking at this map of Amsterdam from 1544 on my hard drive, I've had it forever. I'm thinking, hmm. What house would my persona live in, anyway? It would be her family's home, her mother is a midwife, her father a painter- an artist, probably a portrait artist. This would have been 1483-1512 or so, but I had to figure not TOO much had changed in 30 years.

So the map is oriented upside down, with the southwest at the top of the page. So I picked the one that looked nice, off to the east, near some pastures and orchards and looking out over the water. (You can see it in the lower left hand corner of my header!) I chose this house for a reason;

My persona's surname is Van Den Oostenbrugge, meaning "From the Bridge to the East." I chose this surname deliberately because my great-great grandmother, who immigrated to America from Amsterdam, was named Gertrude Van Estenbridge. I did a lot of research on this last name, and so did a friend of mine who's mother is really into Dutch geneology, and we couldn't find anything. When this is the case, you can usually assume that something got mangled coming through Ellis Island. So I translated it. What is "eastern bridge" in Dutch? Once I had that information, I searched for something resembling that, as a Dutch surname, and sure enough, I found it. So that being said, I chose a house right on a bridge to the eastern fringes of the city.

So I've been to Amsterdam, and I was wondering where this house actually was in modern terms. So I went to Google Maps and zoomed in on the rough area. Had to screen shot it, pull it into Photoshop and rotate it most of the way around to get it to line up correctly with the 1544 map. And of course nothing is exact, but the layout of Amsterdam is very unique, so it was easy enough to make up for the slight offset and distance discrepancy.

So I see in Photoshop that I haven't zoomed out far enough in Google Maps, but I can see on the 1544 map that it's a street that goes straight out from the Weigh House (or Waag) on the Nieuwmarkt, and there's going to be a bridge, it's a street that goes right on over a canal, and the house I've chosen on the 1544 map is like the first house on the right over the bridge.

So I go back to Google Maps, I zoom out, re-orient myself on the map, follow the street and... Now, you remember that her father is a painter, right?

That house?

Yeah, that's Rembrandt's house.
::face palm::  Only me, would this happen to. Only me.

 To be FAIR, Rembrandt was not born until 1606, did not move into the house until 1639, which was built between 1606 and 1607. There obviously were buildings in the area at Alijna's time, however. What did they look like, I wonder? Who lived there, and why? Now I can't wait to get back to the city and look at the area. It'll be years before I can afford that trip, though!

While also screwing around with Google Maps, I mapped how long it would take to walk from Rembrandt's House to the Oude Kerk, where Alijna would have gone to church. It's only a nine-minute walk, so almost certainly she would have been able to hear the bells from home.

(As a totally crazy aside, I just this second discovered that Kiliaen Van Rensselaer is buried beneath the floor of the Oude Kerk. He's the founder of the only successful Patroonship, Rensselaerswyk- which would become (among other towns and cities) Albany, Troy, and Rensselaer, which is where I live now. What is with the coincidences today?!)

I got excited to see that the Nieuwmarkt was right there, thinking that Alijna might go there to buy from merchants, but it turns out that the Waag was originally a gate, part of the eastern city walls which were actually being built when she was born. Alijna would have been living outside of them. It didn't become a market until the 1600's.

I love this tidbit from Wikipedia: "A number of guilds were housed on the top floors of the building: the blacksmiths' guild, the painter's guild, the masons' guild and the surgeons' guild. Each guild had its own entrance gate. The guild emblems are still visible over these entrances" 

I love the idea of guilds, especially after reading the work of Tracy Chevalier, which is exquisitely researched. The Lady and the Unicorn, which revolves around tapestry weavers commissioned for the famous tapestries of the same name, and the weaver's guild they're members of. And also, of course, Girl with a Pearl Earring, which revolves around the Dutch Master Vermeer, and he too is a member of a painter's guild.

Ah, but the painter's guild! If only I wasn't a touch out of period for that. Anyway- this has been a fun couple of hours of research and I'm pleased with the discoveries I've made. History is kind of the best. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

Seriously.
(Check out all of Hark! A Vagrant! here.)