Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel was a Dutch engineer and inventor who lived from 1572 to November 7, 1633. He built the first working submarine in 1620. He also helped create tools for measuring and controlling things, improved lenses for glasses and telescopes, and made discoveries in the study of chemicals.
Biography
Cornelis Drebbel was born in Alkmaar, Holland, in 1572. He came from an Anabaptist family. After attending a Latin school in Alkmaar for several years, he began studying at the Academy in Haarlem around 1587. His teachers included Hendrik Goltzius, an engraver, painter, alchemist, and humanist, and Karel van Mander, a painter, writer, and humanist. Drebbel became skilled at engraving on copperplate and developed an interest in alchemy.
In 1595, he married Sophia Jansdochter Goltzius, the younger sister of Hendrik Goltzius. The couple settled in Alkmaar and had at least six children, four of whom survived. Drebbel initially worked as a painter, engraver, and cartographer. However, he often needed money because of his wife’s expensive lifestyle. In 1598, he received a patent for a water-supply system and a type of perpetual clockwork. In 1600, he built a fountain at the Noorderpoort in Middelburg, a city known for its artistic displays. There, he may have learned about lens grinding, which later helped him create a magic lantern and a camera obscura.
Around 1604, the Drebbel family moved to England, likely invited by King James I of England (also King VI of Scotland). He was housed at Eltham Palace and worked on performances called masques for the royal court. He was connected to the court of Henry, a young Renaissance prince. Drebbel impressed the court with a demonstration of a perpetual motion machine, automatic and hydraulic organs, and his optical instruments.
Drebbel’s reputation spread across European courts. In October 1610, he and his family moved to Prague at the invitation of Emperor Rudolf II of the Roman-German Empire, who was interested in the arts, alchemy, and occult sciences. There, Drebbel showed his inventions. In 1611, after Emperor Rudolf II lost power to his brother, Archduke Matthias, Drebbel was imprisoned for about a year. After Rudolf II died in 1612, Drebbel was released and returned to London in 1613. However, his patron, Prince Henry, had also died, and Drebbel faced financial difficulties. He used his glass-grinding machine to make optical instruments and compound microscopes with two convex lenses, which were in high demand.
In 1619, at the request of Emperor Ferdinand II of the Roman-German Empire, Drebbel returned to Prague to tutor his sons. He was captured during the Battle of White Mountain and the fall of Prague in 1620, where he also lost his wealth. In 1622, Constantijn Huygens, a Dutch diplomat, spent over a year in England. It is possible he learned glass-grinding techniques from Drebbel, which he later passed to his son, Christiaan Huygens, a famous Dutch mathematician and scientist. The English scientist Robert Hooke may have learned glass-grinding from Johannes Sibertus Kuffler, Drebbel’s son-in-law.
In his later years, Drebbel was involved in a plan to drain the Fens near Cambridge, England. He lived in poverty, running an ale house. He died in London in 1633. Following traditional Mennonite customs, his estate was divided among his four surviving children at the time of his death.
Works
Drebbel was a scientist who used experiments to create new ideas and inventions. His work included measuring and controlling tools, air systems, light, chemicals, water movement, and fireworks. He received patents from the Dutch government, called the Staten Generaal. He also wrote about his studies on air pressure and created detailed pictures, such as a map of the city of Alkmaar showing The Seven Liberal Arts. He helped make theater props, moving statues, and plans for a new theater in London. He worked on making torpedoes, underwater bombs, and devices that used glass Batavian tears. He also studied fulminating gold, a type of explosive.
Drebbel is known for creating a machine that could run forever, called a Perpetuum Mobile. He built an incubator for hatching eggs and a portable stove/oven that kept heat at a steady temperature using a regulator. He designed a solar energy system for London, showed how to cool air, created lightning and thunder on purpose, and made fountains and fresh water supplies for the city of Middelburg. He helped drain wetlands near Cambridge, developed early versions of the barometer and thermometer, and made harpsichords that used sunlight to play music.
Drebbel’s most famous written work was A short treatise of the nature of the elements, published in 1621. He also helped invent mercury fulminate, a substance that can explode when mixed with spirit of wine, mercury, and silver in aqua fortis.
Drebbel created a chicken incubator and a mercury thermostat, one of the first devices that automatically kept temperature stable. He also built a working air conditioning system and is credited with inventing the first thermometer.
A story says that while making a colored liquid for a thermometer, Cornelis accidentally dropped a flask of aqua regia on a tin window, discovering that stannous chloride made carmine, a red dye, brighter and longer-lasting. Though Cornelis didn’t earn much money, his family started a successful dye business in London in 1643, producing a bright red color called bow dye. The recipe for "Kufflerianus" was kept secret, and the color became popular in Europe.
Drebbel is credited with inventing a machine that precisely ground lenses, improved telescopes, the first compound microscope ("lunette de Dreubells"), a camera obscura, and a laterna magica. Some historians believe he invented the compound microscope while working for the Duke of Buckingham. The earliest record of this device in Europe dates to 1619, when Dutch Ambassador Willem Boreel saw a compound microscope in Drebbel’s possession in London. In 1621, Drebbel had a compound microscope with two convex lenses. Some of his contemporaries, like Christiaan Huygens, said Drebbel invented the microscope. Others claimed he stole the idea from Dutch spectacle-maker Johannes Zachariassen and his father, Zacharias Jansen. Some also say Galileo Galilei used his telescope as a type of microscope. In 1624, Galileo saw Drebbel’s microscope design in Rome and made an improved version to send to Federico Cesi, founder of the Accademia dei Lincei, who used it in his book about bees.
Drebbel also built the first submarine that could move through water in 1620 for the English Royal Navy. It had a wooden frame covered in leather. Between 1620 and 1624, he built and tested two more submarines, each larger than the last. The final model had six oars and could carry 16 people. It was shown to King James I and thousands of Londoners. The submarine stayed underwater for three hours and could travel from Westminster to Greenwich and back, staying at a depth of 12 to 15 feet. Drebbel even took King James I on a test dive under the Thames, making him the first monarch to travel underwater. Though tested many times, the submarine never saw use in battles.
Cultural references
Cornelis Drebbel was honored on postage stamps issued by the postal services of Mali and the Netherlands in 2010.
A depiction of Cornelis Drebbel and his submarine appears briefly in the film The Four Musketeers (1974). In the film, a small submarine covered in leather surfaces near the coast of England. The top of the submarine opens like a clamshell, revealing Drebbel and the Duke of Buckingham.
Drebbel was featured in an episode of the cartoon Sealab 2021, where he helped rescue workers from a research station in the Arctic. A German U-boat captain celebrated by firing a pistol when Drebbel’s name was mentioned, shouting, “Sieg Heil! Cornelis Drebbel!” Additionally, the Sealab 2021 Season 3 DVD includes two commentaries about Drebbel’s life.
In the Dutch comic Gilles de Geus, which is set during the Eighty Years’ War, Drebbel is a supporting character to the war hero Gilles. He is drawn as a wild inventor, similar to the character Q from the James Bond series. Drebbel’s submarine plays a role in the comic.
Richard SantaColoma has suggested that the Voynich Manuscript may be connected to Drebbel. He first proposed that the manuscript might be Drebbel’s notebook about microscopy and alchemy. Later, he theorized that the manuscript could be a fictional connection to Francis Bacon’s utopian novel New Atlantis, which includes references to items associated with Drebbel, such as a submarine and a perpetual clock.
Namesake
A small lunar crater was named after him. Several Dutch towns have a street named after him. One of these streets is called "Cornelis Drebbelweg" in the city of Delft.