Haarlem
Cornelis Drebbel worked in  which location from 1587 to 1595?
Cornelis Drebbel Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel ( ) ( 1572 – 7 November 1633 ) was a Dutch engineer and inventor . He was the builder of the first navigable submarine in 1620 and an innovator who contributed to the development of measurement and control systems , optics and chemistry . Biography . Cornelis Drebbel was born in Alkmaar , Holland in an Anabaptist family in 1572 . After some years at the Latin school in Alkmaar , around 1587 , he attended the Academy in Haarlem , also located in North-Holland . Teachers at the Academy were Hendrik Goltzius , engraver , painter , alchemist and humanist , Karel van Mander , painter , writer , humanist and Cornelis Corneliszoon of Haarlem . Drebbel became a skilled engraver on copperplate and also took an interest in alchemy . In 1595 he married Sophia Jansdochter Goltzius , younger sister of Hendrick , and settled at Alkmaar . They had at least six children , of whom four survived . Drebbel worked initially as a painter , engraver and cartographer . But he was in constant need of money because of the prodigal lifestyle of his wife . In 1598 he obtained a patent for a water-supply system and a sort of perpetual clockwork . In 1600 , Drebbel was in Middelburg where he built a fountain at the Noorderpoort . In that spectacle making center he may have picked up knowledge in the art of lens grinding and later would construct a magic lantern and a camera obscura . Around 1604 the Drebbel family moved to England , probably at the invitation of the new king , James I of England ( VI of Scotland ) . He was accommodated at Eltham Palace . Drebbel worked there at the masques , that were performed by and for the court . He was attached to the court of young Renaissance crown-prince Henry . He astonished the court with his inventions ( a perpetuum mobile , automatic and hydraulic organs ) and his optical instruments . His fame circulated through the courts of Europe . In October 1610 Drebbel and his family moved to Prague on invitation of Emperor Rudolf II , who was preoccupied with the arts , alchemy and occult sciences . Here again Drebbel demonstrated his inventions . When in 1611 Rudolf II was stripped of all effective power by his younger brother Archduke Matthias , Drebbel was imprisoned for about a year . After Rudolfs death in 1612 , Drebbel was set free and went back to London . Unfortunately his patron prince Henry had also died and Drebbel was in financial trouble . With his glass-grinding machine he manufactured optical instruments and compound microscopes with two convex lenses , for which there was a constant demand . In 1622 Constantijn Huygens stayed as a diplomat for more than one year in England . It is quite possible that he learned the art of glass grinding at this time from Drebbel , and that he passed this knowledge to his second son Christiaan Huygens , who became a prominent Dutch mathematician and scientist . The English natural philosopher Robert Hooke may have learned the art of glass grinding from his acquaintance Johannes Sibertus Kuffler , the son-in-law of Drebbel . Towards the end of his life , in 1633 , Drebbel was involved in a plan to drain the Fens around Cambridge , while living in near-poverty running an ale house in England . He died in London . In keeping with traditional Mennonite practice , Drebbels estate was split between his four living children at the time of his death . Works . The Edison of his era , Drebbel was an empirical researcher and innovator . His constructions and innovations cover measurement and control technology , pneumatics , optics , chemistry , hydraulics and pyrotechnics . Along with Staten General he registered several patents . He also wrote essays about his experiments with air pressure and made beautiful engravings ; including The Seven Liberal Arts on a map of the city of Alkmaar . He was involved in making theater props , moving statues and in plans to build a new theater in London . He worked on producing torpedoes , naval mines , detonators that used glass Batavian tears , and worked on fulminating gold ( aurum fulminans ) as an explosive . He was known for his Perpetuum Mobile , built an incubator for eggs and a portable stove/oven with an optimal use of fuel , able to keep the heat on a constant temperature by means of a regulator/thermostat . He designed a solar energy system for London ( perpetual fire ) , demonstrated air-conditioning , made lightning and thunder ‘on command’ , and developed fountains and a fresh water supply for the city of Middelburg . He was involved in the draining of the moors around Cambridge ( the Fens ) , developed a predecessors of the barometer and thermometer , and a harpsichords that played on solar energy . Chemistry . Drebbels most famous written work was Een kort Tractaet van de Natuere der Elementen ( A short treatise of the nature of the elements ) ( Haarlem , 1621 ) . He was also involved in the invention of mercury fulminate . He also discovered that mixtures of “spiritus vini” with mercury and silver in “aqua fortis” could explode . Drebbel invented a chicken incubator and a mercury thermostat which automatically kept it stable at a constant temperature ; one of the first recorded feedback-controlled devices . He also developed and demonstrated a working air conditioning system . The invention of a working thermometer is also credited to Drebbel . Scarlet dye . The story goes that , while making a coloured liquid for a thermometer Cornelis dropped a flask of aqua regia on a tin window sill , and discovered that stannous chloride makes the colour of carmine much brighter and more durable . Although Cornelis did not make much money from his work , his daughters Anna and Catharina and his sons-in-law Abraham and Johannes Sibertus Kuffler set up a very successful dye works . One was set up in 1643 in Bow , London , and the resulting colour was called bow dye . The recipe for colour Kufflerianus was kept a family secret , and the new bright red colour was very popular in Europe . Optics . Drebbel is credited with developing an automatic precision lens-grinding machine , improved telescopes , the first compound microscope ( lunette de Dreubells ) , camera obscura , laterna magica , and Dutch or Batavian tears Compound microscope . One of the optical devices some historians believe Drebbel invented when he was working for the Duke of Buckingham was the compound microscope . The device appeared in Europe around 1620 with the earliest account being Dutch Ambassador Willem Boreels 1619 visit to London where he saw a compound microscope in Drebbels possession , described as an instrument about eighteen inches long , two inches in diameter , and supported on 3 brass dolphins . In 1621 Drebbel had a compound microscope with two convex lenses . Several of his contemporaries , including Christiaan Huygens , credited the invention of the compound microscope to Drebbel . The invention has many counter claims including Dutch spectacle-maker Johannes Zachariassens claim that Drebbel stole the idea from him and his father , Zacharias Jansen , and claims that Galileo Galilei used his telescope after 1610 as a type of compound microscope . In 1624 Galileo saw Drebbels design for a microscope in Rome and created an improved version of it to send to Federico Cesi , founder of the Accademia dei Lincei , who used it to illustrate Apiarum , his book about bees . Submarine . He also built the first navigable submarine in 1620 while working for the English Royal Navy . He manufactured a steerable submarine with a leather-covered wooden frame . Between 1620 and 1624 Drebbel successfully built and tested two more submarines , each one bigger than the last . The final ( third ) model had 6 oars and could carry 16 passengers . This model was demonstrated to King James I in person and several thousand Londoners . The submarine stayed submerged for three hours and could travel from Westminster to Greenwich and back , cruising at a depth between 12 and 15 feet ( 4 to 5 metres ) . Drebbel even took King James in this submarine on a test dive beneath the Thames , making King James I the first monarch to travel underwater . This submarine was tested many times in the Thames , but it couldnt attract enough enthusiasm from the Admiralty and was never used in combat . More recently it has been suggested that the contemporary accounts of the craft contained significant elements of exaggeration and it was at most a semi-submersible which was able to travel down the Thames by the force of the current . However , semi- and even completely submerged ships as well as fully covered ships were no novelty at all back then and had been used in action several times , each time attracting headlines . Cultural references . Cornelis Drebbel has been honoured on postage stamps issued by the postal services of both Mali and the Netherlands in 2010 . A portrayal of Cornelis Drebbel and his submarine can be briefly seen in the film The Four Musketeers ( 1974 ) . A small leatherclad submersible surfaces off the coast of England , and the top opens clamshell-wise revealing Cornelis Drebbel and the Duke of Buckingham . Drebbel was honoured in an episode of the cartoon Sealab 2021 during a submarine rescue of workers on a research station in the Arctic . A German U-boat captain fired a pistol in celebration at the mention of Drebbel , to shouts of , Sieg Heil ! Cornelis Drebbel ! Also , on the Sealab 2021 Season 3 DVD , Cornelis Drebbel has two DVD commentaries devoted to the story of his life . In the Dutch Eighty Years War comic Gilles de Geus , Drebbel is a supporting character to the warhero Gilles . He is drawn as a crazy inventor , similar to Q in the James Bond series . His submarine plays a role in the comic . Richard SantaColoma has speculated that the Voynich Manuscript may be connected to Drebbel , initially suggesting it was Drebbels cipher notebook on microscopy and alchemy , and then later hypothesising it is a fictional tie in to Francis Bacons utopian novel New Atlantis in which some Drebbel-related items ( submarine , perpetual clock ) are said to appear . Namesake . A small lunar crater has been named after him . The street Cornelis Drebbelweg in Delft , the Netherlands has been named after him . Sources . - BBC bio - Andrew Szydlo , Water that does not wet hands , ( Polish Academy of Sciences , 1994 ) - Brett McLaughlin , Cornelis Drebbel and the First Submarine ( 1997 ) - L.E . Harris , The Two Netherlanders , Humphrey Bradley and Cornelis Drebbel ( Cambridge , 1961 ) - F.M . Jaeger , Cornelis Drebbel en zijne tijdgenooten , ( Groningen , 1922 ) - Who was Cornelis J . Drebbel ? External links . - Cornelis Drebbel ( 1572–1633 ) - Cornelis Drebbel : inventor of the submarine - The Voynich Manuscript : Drebbels lost notebook ? - Drebbels website - Wiki about Drebbel - Drebbel Gin