Nulli Peregrinatorum Secundus

THE CRITICAL EDITION OF THE PRINTED AND UNPUBLISHED WORKS OF
ENGELBERT KAEMPFER. 

By Detlef Haberland

Engelbert Kaempfer is one of the few German personalities of
the Baroque Period whose written oeuvre has left a permanent
impression. Yet this reception is not based upon a knowledge
of his complete works. In fact, so far important parts of his
learned studies have remained hidden from the public; other
parts are known only through translations or revised and
modernized editions.

ORIENTAL DRIFT
Kaempfer was born in Lemgo in 1651. After visiting the local
Grammar school he went to Hamelin and attended the
universities of Lneburg, Lbeck, and Danzig, where he
finished his education in 1673 with a treatise 'Exercitatio
Politica de Majestatis Divisiones in Realem et Personalem'.
Between 1674 and 1676 he studied at Cracow, then he travelled
via Warsaw, Thorn, and Danzig to Elbing where he matriculated
at the K”nigsberg University in March 1677, focusing his
studies on natural history and medicine. In 1681 he went to
Sweden, where he planned to attend the lectures of the famous
scholar Olof Rudbeck.
However, he may also well have hoped to find a permanent
appointment in the Swedish Kingdom. In fact, he succeeded in
becoming secretary to a legation which was sent to Russia and
Persia in order to improve the Swedish-Persian silk-trade.
Kaempfer spent from March 1684 to November 1685 in Isfahan,
and afterwards - probably entranced by the fascinating
oriental culture and nature? - he joined the VOC in the
capacity of physician. During the same month, November 1685,
he travelled via Persepolis to Bandar Abbas on the Persian
Gulf, where he remained until the middle of 1688.
His wish to see China and India was never fulfilled. He only
passed by India on the way to Java and Batavia, where the
Asian headquarters of the VOC were located. Kaempfer stayed
here from late 1689 to May 1690, without a position and
without any hope of realizing his plans. Then he found the
opportunity to go to the VOC trading post in Japan as
physician. He remained on Deshima till October 1692 before
returning home with an immense fund of scientific and cultural
notes, as well as large numbers of Japanese books and
artefacts.
By 1693 he was back in Europe, where he obtained his medical
degree for his dissertation 'Disputation medica inauguralis
exhibens decadem observationum exoticarum' in 1694. The same
year he returned to Lemgo to set up as a doctor. He was
appointed personal physician to Count Friedrich Adolf zu Lippe
in 1698. Kaempfer died in 1716, worn out by various personal
and domestic troubles, by his huge medical practice, and by
his personal inability to work up and publish his immense
amount of notes and writings. Apart from the two
above-mentioned treatises, only the 'Amoenitatum exoticarum
politico-physico-medicarum fasciculi V' was published during
his lifetime, in 1712 in Lemgo.

RECEPTION AND EDITIONS
By what must be considered a huge historical chance,
Kaempfer's papers were brought to London in 1723 and 1725 by
Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753). However, this did not mean that
fresh life was breathed into the more than 4000 manuscript
pages, although Sloane did insist on printing Kaempfer's
manuscript 'Heutiges Japan. Zu einer Zweifachen Hoffreise
durchgeschaut und beschrieben etc'. This was published as 'The
History of Japan' in London in 1727. After a second edition in
1728, the following year it was translated into Dutch and
French; and various editions in these languages followed. In
1773 the book was translated into Russian, and finally in
1777/1779 a two-volume edition appeared in Lemgo under the
title 'Geschichte und Beschreibung von Japan', which was
revised and edited by Christian Wilhelm Dohm (cf. reprinted
with a preface by Hanno Beck, Stuttgart 1964).
The 'Amoenitates' and the book on Japan were the only sources
which conveyed some idea of Kaempfer's knowledge. The book  on
Japan was widely  read in the 18th century, because Kaempfer
was the first European to offer any first-hand knowledge about
Japan (for the reception of his works cf. the supplementary
volume of the 1980 edition of the 'Geschichte und Beschreibung
von Japan'). At the end of the 18th and in the early 19th
century scholars like Thunberg, Von Siebold, Heine, and Rein
relied heavily on Kaempfer. His work remained an important
source not only for topography, but also for botanical or
pharmaceutical aspects throughout the century. Since the bulk
of his manuscripts has so far remained unpublished, the exact
extent of his works is still unknown.
In 1929 Dr. Karl Meier-Lemgo (1882-1969), a high-school
teacher in Lemgo, went to London to make excerpts from the
manuscripts, some of which had been badly preserved; years
afterwards he had photographs make of them. Relying on his
notes and these early photos he wrote numerous articles and
essays on Kaempfer as well as his biography (Stuttgart 1937;
2nd, slightly revised edition Hamburg 1960). He gained a
reputation as one of the best Kaempfer scholars, as well as
being the only person able to decipher Kaempfer's difficult
handwriting. He edited various passages from the
'Amoenitates', and also from Kaempfer's travel-notebooks and
from his letters, always with the intention of making his
great country-fellow - as he himself emphasized - better known
to a greater public. To do this he smoothed out the rough
edges in the original texts and idealized Kaempfer's
personality. Meier-Lemgo's service consists of the fact that
he fundamentally initiated Kaempfer research in this century,
though, on the other hand, it has to be admitted that he
scarcely ever chose to take recourse to the current Baroque
studies or of studies on scientific history.
Finally it was the 'Festschrift' commemorating the 330th
anniversary of Kaempfer's birth (edited by Hans Hls and Hans
Hoppe. Lemgo 1982), my new Kaempfer biography (Detmold 1990),
as well as the volume containing the collected papers of the
conference held to commemorate the 300th anniversary of
Kaempfer's arrival in Japan (Stuttgart 1993) which have
signalled the need for a fresh start on Kaempfer research:
without an edition of the manuscripts no really proper and
balanced judgement can be made about the complete oeuvre, nor
can any statement concerning Kaempfer's position within the
learned discourses of his time be made.

INTEGRAL EDITION
It was imperative something must be done: and in 1991 I was
able to start preliminary work on such an edition. The edition
- which is now in progress - will be published by the Iudicium
publishing house in Munich and will comprise 22 volumes, of
which the two first will probably be on the market by the end
of 1995. A scientific board of advisors, chaired by Professor
Josef Kreiner (Philipp Franz van Siebold-Stiftung, Deutsches
Intitut fr Japanstudi‰n, Tokyo). acts as advisor to both the
general editor and the editors of the separate volumes.
Specific conditions have been defined for the actual process
of editing a particular volume : any printed or unprinted
texts are to be reproduced without any cuts. The texts will be
presented in their original languages (predominantly Latin,
Dutch, German) and a complete translation is included to help
the reader's understanding. Specific explanations concerning
persons, objects, or definitions within the texts are given in
the annotations. The critical apparatus contains information
on technical data in the text as well as on corrections within
the text, or misprints or variants. Each volume also contains
a commentary either in the form of an introductory essay or an
appendix, which defines the individual text within the
intellectual history of its time, also giving literary,
historical, or social references. An index on persons,
objects, and places is included and specific terms are given
as Kaempfer wrote them as well as in our contemporary version.
A difference has to be made between the edition of printed and
unpublished writings. In the 'Valedictio', the 'Decem
Observationes', and the 'Amoenitates' we have works which
represent the ultimate intention of the author. Compared to
the printed texts, preliminary writings and first proofs
always have to be considered secondary, yet they are
indispensable for the genesis of the text, language, or
argument. These preliminary stages are included in the
critical apparatus as variants and only when they diverge
greatly are they given as complete texts.
This approach has had to be changed when dealing with the
manuscripts. They must be considered as the only means of
passing the specific content on to posterity and include the
travel diaries, the letters, and botanical notes made on the
spot. These manuscripts must be edited completely. It should
not be thought that the intention of the planned edition is to
develop new ways of editing, it is to give the reader a
verifiable and readable text on the basis of the available
material.
In concrete terms this means: any ordinary abbreviations are
mentioned in the editorial report and will appear in the text
in their complete form. Special abbreviations (private or
unusual contractions, etc.) are given in the text in their
usual version, in the commentary in their original form. An
exception are the alchemist's symbols which are treated
differently.
No attempt will be made to imitate the original distribution
of the texts in Kaempfer's notebooks or in his papers. Only
Kaempfer's paragraphs or indentations - marking the
introduction of new content - have been adopted. Each part of
text will be accompanied by the Sloane-manuscript number or
folio-number.
For the first time the plan is to include each drawing, even
study or preliminary ones, made by Kaempfer (app. 1280, which
are being photographed at the moment by the British Library).
For the first time the reader will be able to get an
impression of the total importance of Kaempfer's fieldwork. In
the first instance these are small, sometimes extremely small,
drawings of plants, parts of plants, topographical or regional
features (objects, musical instruments, dress and so forth),
some measure only a few millimetres. There are also hundreds
of perfectly executed botanical drawings  (in quarto), as well
as maps of itineraries, which measure up to 50 cm. The
integration of the drawings within the printed text will be
rather problematical for both formal and technical reasons,
hence they will be assigned separate plates within each
volume, if possible in their original size.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INTEGRAL EDITION
For the modern scholar, research on Kaempfer's work is
extremely interesting since he left an enormous amount of
written and illustrative material (even though they may in no
way be compared to Leibniz's papers), which sheds light on the
general scientific knowledge at the dawn of the 18th century.
Kaempfer research will not only be given a whole new
foundation but will also help fulfil the justified demand by
researchers into the Baroque Period for reliable editions of
primary texts. Since Kaempfer - except during his time in
Isfahan, Bugun, and Deshima -  always acquired his
far-reaching knowledge under exigent conditions and in a very
short time, we can assume that we will be rewarded with
extremely interesting insights into his process of perception.
The most striking example is his three-day stay at Persepolis,
which he used to investigate the palace tirelessly from
morning till night. We will obtain detailed information
concerning his topographical knowledge furnished by his
itinerary note-books, his interviews and so forth; comparing
the rough notes with the written text we can slowly follow its
development into how Kaempfer composes a scientific text, e.g.
either one he has written himself or that penned by the
secretary at the Swedish legation. An analysis of botanical
texts makes it possible to define his position in pre-Linnean
botany; similarly we can assume we will be able to draw
inferences from his pharmaceutical and medical discourses. For
the first time we will also find out where Kaempfer erred, or
more accurately had to err, because he relied on unreliable
informants or had only fragmentary data at his disposal. 
Last but not least we can define his position within the
'republica litteraria' more clearly. On the whole, a huge
spectrum of new insights will be created which can only be
acquired by the complete publication of Kaempfer's notes and
writings. Even though he sometimes may not have been among the
first flight of scientific scholars of his time, the judgment
of Albrecht von Haller on this studious, highly commendable
and, at the same time, little known scholar is still
relevant:"Nulli peregrinatorum secundus..."