HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Bengt Skytte af Duderhof (1614–1683) was a Swedish courtier and diplomat. He was a follower of
Comenius John Amos Comenius (; ; ; ; Latinization (literature), Latinized: ''Ioannes Amos Comenius''; 28 March 1592 – 15 November 1670) was a Czech Philosophy, philosopher, Pedagogy, pedagogue and Theology, theologian who is considered the father of ...
and proposed a pansophic city, "Sophopolis".


Early life

He was the son of Johan Skytte''Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon''
/ref> and Maria Näf (Neaf) and brother of Vendela Skytte. He matriculated at the
University of Uppsala Uppsala University (UU) () is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially founded in the 15th century, the university rose to s ...
, aged 10. In 1629, he, with Schering Rosenhane, accompanied Sir James Spens to court in London, where he was knighted by
Charles I of England Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland from 27 March 1625 until Execution of Charles I, his execution in 1649. Charles was born ...
. Skytte was then probably at the
University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange as a Protestant institution, it holds the distinction of being the oldest university in the Neth ...
in 1629–30; and went on to study at Dorpat (where the university was not founded before 1632!).Donald R. Dickson, ''The Tessera of Antilia: utopian brotherhoods & secret societies in the early seventeenth century'' (1998), pp. 220–1
Google Books
In 1631, he visited the
Tsardom of Russia The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Moscow, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan the Terrible, Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721. ...
. After that, he had two periods of study with Gerardus Vossius, to 1634.


Courtier and diplomat

Skytte was appointed chamberlain to Christina, Queen of Sweden in 1633. In 1634–5, he was attached to Axel Oxenstierna in
Magdeburg Magdeburg (; ) is the Capital city, capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is on the Elbe river. Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Mag ...
, on a mission to
Cardinal Richelieu Armand Jean du Plessis, 1st Duke of Richelieu (9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), commonly known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a Catholic Church in France, French Catholic prelate and statesman who had an outsized influence in civil and religi ...
in Paris, and in southern Italy. In 1651, he visited Comenius in
Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
; in that year, he was implicated by Arnold Johan Messenius in his confession before his execution. In 1651–2, he travelled from
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
to
Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
. On the way, he noticed analogies between the
Hungarian language Hungarian, or Magyar (, ), is an Ugric language of the Uralic language family spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighboring countries. It is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Out ...
and the
Finnish language Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Finnic languages, Finnic language of the Uralic languages, Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official langu ...
.Daniel Droixhe, ''La Linguistique et l'appel de l'histoire. 1600-1800. Rationalisme et revolutions positivistes'' (1978), p. 135
Google Books
This was an unofficial journey. While there, he stayed for half a year in the house of a Turk, whose son Yusuf later was a Christian convert under the name of Richard Christophilus in England, as Skytte later testified. In 1655, he became governor of
Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
as the
Second Northern War The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of ...
broke out. In 1656, he urged Charles X Gustav of Sweden to make a defensive alliance with Russia, advice that was taken. In 1655–57, Skytte served as the viceroy of Swedish Lithuania.Kontljarchuk, A. (2006)
''In the Shadows of Poland and Russia: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Sweden in the European Crisis of the mid-17th Century.''
JSTOR JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...
. ISBN 91-89315-63-4.


Projector

On a 1659 journey to London as ambassador, he launched a project for Sophopolis; it was taken up by the Hartlib Circle. Skytte was one of the supporters of John Dury in his ecumenical projects; he was also able to meet in London with Robert Boyle, and was introduced to the Gresham College group of virtuosi. His own project was for a residential college. Boyle had already had such a plan, costed at something over £1000, in a letter from John Evelyn in September 1659; Skytte's concept was on a similar scale. While nothing came of the plan, one of the precursors of the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
of the
English Restoration The Stuart Restoration was the reinstatement in May 1660 of the Stuart monarchy in Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland. It replaced the Commonwealth of England, established in January 164 ...
, Skytte had backing at the time, from Hartlib and his associate John Beale, and Boyle.Allison Coudert, Richard Henry Popkin, Gordon M. Weiner, ''Leibniz, Mysticism, and Religion'' (1998), p. 87–8
Google Books
Hartlib gave a very circumstantial account of the position of the group of virtuosi, meeting regularly both at Gresham College and in William Ball's chambers in the
Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...
, in a letter of 17 December 1660 to John Worthington; at this point he had not yet met with Skytte to discuss Antilia, a generic name used for pansophic projects. Skytte had approached
Charles II of England Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651 and King of England, Scotland, and King of Ireland, Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685. Charles II was the eldest su ...
for a grant to support his scheme, but the evolution of the thinking of the virtuosi bypassed his plan, and Hartlib. In 1666, Skytte quarrelled with the Swedish court, and he travelled to see Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg. With the help of the physician Nicholas Bonnet, he presented to the Elector a plan for a Brandenburg University, which would have a "universal" quality. The chosen location was
Tangermünde Tangermünde (; ) is a historic town on the Elbe River in the district of Stendal (district), Stendal, in the northeastern part of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The town has land area of around 89.87 sq.km (34.70 sq.mi) and a population of 10,283 people ...
. This was another "Sophopolis" or Solomon's House project, possibly in emulation of the Royal Society of London. Overambitious, it did not succeed. In 1669, Skytte was at the court of
Hanau Hanau () is a city in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is 25 km east of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main and part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its railway Hanau Hauptbahnhof, station is a ma ...
, where he clashed with Johann Joachim Becher; he acted as patron there for Daniel Neuberger the younger (1621-1680), a sculptor in wax. In that year, also, he was reported to the authorities in Frankfurt by Philipp Jakob Spener, the
Pietist Pietism (), also known as Pietistic Lutheranism, is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christianity, Christian life. Although the movement is ali ...
, for table talk disrespectful of the Bible.


Works

On his way to
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
in 1667, Skytte met
Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Isaac Newton, Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in ad ...
, who retained an interest in his ideas and, thirty years later, tried to collect his papers with Johan Gabriel Sparwenfeld; Leibniz mentioned Skytte and Georg Stiernhielm in correspondence with Hiob Ludolf in 1687 as aspiring to a harmony of many languages, Tullio De Mauro, Lia Formigari, ''Leibniz, Humboldt, and the Origins of Comparativism'' (1990), p. 11
Google Books
and elsewhere wrote that they had met and discussed linguistics in
Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
. Leibniz also commented on the ostracism Skytte had suffered at this period. It is believed that Skytte had an unpublished scheme for a universal language; he worked quite closely with Stiernhielm, and they used the polyglot thesaurus of Hieronymus Megiser. Skytte's manuscript ''Sol praecipuarum linguarum subsolarium'', which Leibniz did not track down, remained unpublished. It passed to Johan Ihre and then to the University of Uppsala. Skytte's Hungarian word lists were used by Olaus Rudbeck and Olaus Rudbeck the younger. Sylvain Auroux, ''Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaften: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Entwicklung der Sprachforschung von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart'' (2001), p. 1150
Google Books
Skytte and Stiernhielm, Rudbeck and Urban Hjärne have been classed as "early Swedish illuminists" because of their shared interests in a broad area including aspects of
alchemy Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first ...
and
hermeticism Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a philosophical and religious tradition rooted in the teachings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretism, syncretic figure combining elements of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. This system e ...
.


Family

He married first Christina Sparre in 1636, and secondly in the 1670s Eva Mörner. He was the father of Maria Skytte.


Notes


External links

*
CERL page
* List of manuscripts in Johann Friedrich von Recke, Karl Eduard von Napiersky, Theodor Beise, ''Allgemeines Schriftsteller- und Gelehrten-Lexikon der Provinzen Livland, Esthland und Kurland'', Volume 4 (1832), pp. 210–2
Google Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Skytte, Bengt 1614 births 1683 deaths Diplomats for Sweden Governors of Uppsala County Diplomats from Stockholm