Why a Bernoulli Edition?

The Bernoulli Family

Works and correspondence

The scientific legacy

The Edition (about us)

Links

Contacts:
P. Radelet : General Editor
F. Nagel : Editor responsible for Correspondence
B. Gaino : Secretary

BIOGRAPHIES
It remains unresolved whence the Bernoulli family originated—both the Burgundy region of France and the Spanish city of Burgos have been suggested but without convincing supporting evidence in either case. By the middle of the sixteenth century we are on firm ground with the ancestor Léon, who practised surgery in Antwerpen and who died in 1561. It is known that his family included three sons, Peeter, Jacob and Nicolaus: the elder, Peeter, died in 1568 leaving a young family; the younger, Nicolaus, set up a wax manufacturing business and lived to 1581.
The middle son, Jacob, is the focus of our attention. A man of exceptional energy, he also, at least from a certain point on, showed a strong religious commitment. At the time, Antwerpen was one of the chief commercial centers in Europe, where Jacob established himself as an extensive property-owner. He married twice and a large family ensued from the second marriage. The archive of the birth registry in Antwerpen records six of these— a daughter Paulina and five sons—Nicolaus. Abraham, Matthäus. Remigius and Isaak: it is possible others were born after Jacob moved his family to Frankfurt-am-Main in 1567.
It appears that this move was linked to Jacob's association with Matija Vlacic, the Croatian reformer zealous in the Lutheran cause, who visited Antwerpen in 1566. The long-standing edict against heretics (Karl V, 1550), to be activated in the now imminent counter-reformation campaign of the Duke of Alba, may have been the immediate impulse for the move. At any rate both Vlacic and Jacob Bernoulli appear in Frankfurt in 1567 and three years later (1570) Bernoulli is admitted a Burger (citizenship) in that city; some time later Jacob is mentioned as an arms manufacturer. In fact, Jacob was a central figure in the migration of followers of the Augsburg Confession from Antwerpen to Frankfurt: later he and his sons are the leading figures among the Antorfer Martinisten (Antwerpen Lutherans) in the Frankfurt congregation.
In subsequent years, it appears that Jacob established himself in the spice trade—a crucial trade still centred in Antwerpen, where he retained his contacts after emigrating. As his sons grew to maturity, they established branches of the business in various cities. The eldest son Nicolaus acted as agent for some years in Amsterdam; both Abraham and Matthäus established themselves in Hamburg and settled there; likewise with Remigius in Köln, while the younger brother Isaak remained in Frankfurt and established the Frankfurt line.
In 1592 in Amsterdam, Nicolaus married Anna de Hartoge, with whom he had two daughters, Paulina and Franchina, and a son, Jacob. Within a few years Nicolaus returned with his wife and family to Frankfurt and it is there that the birth of his son—the above-mentioned Jacob—is recorded in 1598. Shortly thereafter Anna died and in 1602 he entered his second marriage with Magdalena von Elfelts. He died in 1609.
When Jacob (1598–1634) came of age he migrated to Basel (1620) to establish there what had now become the family business of spices and drugs. In 1622 he was admitted a Bürger of Basel and in the same year married (1) Maria Frey: their son Nicolaus was born in 1623. The high rate of early mortality for women in that age is put in focus when we note that two subsequent marriages are recorded for him, (2) to Maria Burckhart in 1627 and (3) to Catharina Güntzer in 1634. Jacob himself died later that same year (1634).
Nicolaus (1623–1708) in time inherited the family business, was elected to the City Council and appointed Magistrate. In 1646 he married Margaretha Schönauer, a daughter of another member of the City Council. From this marriage are descended the most famous dynasty in the history of Science. The mathematical eminence lasted three generations and the academic distinction has persisted to our own time. In the three hundred years since the emergence of the name Bernoulli in intellectual distinction, there are to be counted over fifty professors bearing that name.
Our attention will be confined to certain members of the first three generations—the eight identified on the genealogical diagram. These eight could be referred to as the Bernoulli "fine": the ninth name—that of Jacob Hermann—while not of the "fine" is, however, part of the project.
A large family were born to Nicolaus and Margaretha but only three have a part in this story—Jacob, Nicolaus and Johann. It was as an artist and Alderman on the City Council that Nicolaus was known to his contemporaries, but one of his sons has his place in the second generation of the mathematical dynasty as Nicolaus I. But it is with his brothers Jacob and Johann that the history of the dynasty begins.

Ó Mathúna, 1999