Gerrit Claesz Pool

Frigate Pieter en Paul in the painting by Abraham Storck

Gerrit Claesz Pool , later also Poel (baptized on February 19, 1651 in Amsterdam ; buried on June 2, 1710 there ) was a Dutch shipbuilder, shipyard master and ship carpenter in Amsterdam. He became known as the teacher of Tsar Peter the Great and for the carpenter's certificate that he issued to him.

Life

Pool was married twice, first on August 29, 1679 to Marritje Jansdr, who was buried on June 1, 1693, and in the second marriage from November 24, 1693 to Eva Snellings, who was buried on March 12, 1726. The first marriage had eight children. In his capacity as shipyard master, he managed, among other things, the construction of the frigate "Pieter en Paul", in which Peter the Great also participated. This ship was then used in the Dutch East India Cruise . Even after Peter the Great returned to Russia, he corresponded with Pool and asked him for advice on shipbuilding issues.

Testimony for Peter the Great

The teaching certificate that Pool issued to the Tsar was reprinted several times, wording:

I, undersigned Gerrit Claeß Pool, master carpenter of the East Indian company in the Chamber of Amsterdam, certify and testify as the truth that Peter Michaeloff (belongs to the entourage of the Great Moscow legation, and therefore among those who are here in Amsterdam at the East Indian shipyard I lived from August 30, 1697 to this day and worked under our supervision), behaved as a hardworking and capable carpenter during the time of his noble stay there, as if there was rough work, putting down sticks, scraping off, broaching, planing, pasting, chopping , Trimming, drilling, sawing, burning planks and bumpers and whatever gets a good and excellent carpenter to do, and has a frigate, Peter and Paul, over 100 feet long, from the beginning (on the stem and starboard) until it is almost finished was, help to do that and not alone, but through me is also still in the ship architecture and Z oak art has been fully instructed so that Se. Edeln understands it from the ground up, and that as far as we think it can be practiced. As a testimony to the truth, I have signed this with my own hand. This is what happened in Amsterdam at our usual place of residence at the East Indian shipyard,

January 15th in the year of our Lord 1698.

Gerrit Claesz Pool, master carpenter of the EE. Octroyed East Indian company in Amsterdam.

Aftermath

The ship “Pieter en Paul”, built under the direction of Pool, is shown in a painting by the painter Abraham Storck (1644–1708). This picture is now in the Het Scheepvaartmuseum (former name: Nederlandsch Historisch Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam).

The material from Peter the Great's apprenticeship as a carpenter under the pseudonym Peter Michailow has been edited literarily and musically several times, including by Gaetano Donizetti ( Il borgomastro di Saardam ) and Albert Lortzing ( Tsar and Zimmermann ), the most famous of which is Lortzing's opera. However, the editors moved the plot to Saardam , where Peter the Great had only stayed for a short time.

literature

Prints of the apprenticeship certificate for Peter the Great

• Algemeene Konst- en Letterbode, No 5 van het jaar 1856
• JFL de Balbian Ferster over het verblijf van de Czaar te Amsterdam, printed in het zeventiende jaarboek van het Genootschap Amstelodamum (Amsterdam 1919), blazijden 33 en 34
• Raptschinsky, s. below, page 129

The “Algemeene Konst- en Letterbode” and JFL de Balbian Ferster also report on the finding of the certificate in the archives of the Moscow Kremlin , Ferster also goes into the dimensions and further fate of the frigate Pieter en Paul .

Further references

• A. Jasykoff, Peter the Great's stay in Zaardam and Amsterdam in 1697 and 1717. Historical sketch, Zaandam 1910, pp. 33, 60
• Boris Raptschinsky, Peter de Grote in Holland 1697 - 1698, Thieme Verlag, Amsterdam, Zutphen 1925/1926. Historical sketch, pp 117, 119, 122, 129, 131
• Karl Bartz, Peter the Great (novel), Paul Neff Verlag Berlin 1941, pp. 159, 162, 163
• Werner Keller, East minus West = zero, The construction of Russia through the West, ...... Munich, Droemersche Verlagsanstalt, p. 108 f.
• Henry Vallotton , Peter the Great, Munich 1960, Callwey, p. 132

Web links

• Biographical data