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It is and remains unique, the planetarium that the Frisian wool manufacturer and businessman Eise Eisinga built independently in his own home in Franeker. But contrary to popular belief, Eisinga didn’t always teach himself everything. On the contrary. He was not self-taught, but ‘just’ had a teacher, according to archive research.
Known as the oldest functioning planetarium in the world, the Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium is now a well-visited attraction in the north of the Netherlands. Construction in the center of the Frisian town lasted from 1774 to 1781. An ingenious pendulum clock powers the planetarium. The construction provides an up-to-date picture of the positions of the sun, moon, earth and the five other planets known at the time. The house in Franeker is a national monument. Eisinga itself is included in the Canon of the Netherlands and that of Fryslân.
But history is being rewritten now that director Arjen Dijkstra has discovered a striking manuscript in the archives of Tresoar, the Frisian Historical and Literary Center in Leeuwarden. It is a document with the description Measurement art of WW 4toreports Omrop Fryslân.
The document contains a number of complicated mathematical sums that students at the former University of Franeker had to make. A little further on in the archive, Dijkstra found a notebook by Eise Eisinga in which he is doing exactly those sums. “I thought, it won’t be the same anyway. But they are really exactly the same mathematical problems. Wow!”, says Dijkstra.
Type of math course
He suspects that Willem Wytzes, a teacher and wool comber’s assistant, gave “a kind of course in mathematics” at the university, took the sums home with him and then had them done by Eisinga.
The question is what this does to Eisinga’s status; every visitor who visits the planetarium will be the first to hear that the wool manufacturer was self-taught and really did everything himself. “That mythical status? Nothing changes,” says Dijkstra. “One who teaches himself everything is a kind of Tarzan who lives in an uninhabited jungle and teaches himself to read and write.”
According to Dijkstra, the fact that Wytzes was helpful makes little difference. “It may be less mythical, but it is more real. And anyone who has ever been to the planetarium knows how special it is. It is really overwhelming. And whether Eisinga came up with it on his own or had help, does not matter not even that much.”
