The Land Yacht of Stevin, Joan Blaeu, 1649 Inv 1196

Simon Stevin (1548-1620) was a man with a practical bent. His books on mathematics, mechanics and astronomy appeal especially to common sense and emphasise the practical applicability of these sciences. Moreover, they are not written in the Latin usual for scholarly works at the time, but in Dutch, in Stevin's view the ideal language for expressing scientific ideas in. As a mathematician and engineer Stevin was in the personal service of Prince Maurits. He was also responsible for the teaching programme of the Nederduytsche Mathematique, an engineering college, designed to provide the Dutch Republic with its fortress-builders and surveyors.Stevin's most famous invention is probably the land yacht, in which, in around 1660, an illustrious company of 28 persons, including Prince Maurits and Grotius, travelled along the beach of Scheveningen to Petten. Half a century later the atlas-maker Joan Blaeu immortalised Stevin's land yacht in the above print in his Stedeboec (1649).