The Dapper Brothers

Walking down lively Dapperstraat, one might think of the famous daily market that can be found here. But the man after whom this street - and thus the entire neighborhood - is named was known primarily for his sharp pen and, remarkably enough, his loose hands.

Olfert Dapper, born in 1636, was an impressive thinker. He studied in Utrecht, from then on officially called himself "Dapper" and grew into a true jack-of-all-trades: physician, linguist, historian, translator, geographer. Without ever traveling outside the Netherlands, he wrote extensive works on Africa, Asia, Greece and China, among others, based on other people's travel accounts. His 1668 book on Africa was used as a standard work for centuries. Dapper's reputation extended far beyond the country's borders: his books were translated into French, English and German. In short, Olfert Dapper was an intellectual of note, although he has been largely forgotten in his own country.

But Dapper also had a very different side. As a young man, he turned up in notarial records - not as a scholar, but as a brawler. In 1652, even before his college days, he and his brother Gerrit literally kicked a certain wine buyer out of the house of their mother, Trijntje Heeren, on Anjeliersstraat. Eyewitnesses reported that the man was left bloodied, with a broken nose and swollen cheek in the street, only to be pulled to safety by neighbors.

His brother Gerrit was no sweetheart either. As a tax official at the Waag on Dam Square in 1667, he is said to have assaulted a guard so severely that blood ran down his cheeks. He had scratched the man's face open, crushed his eyes, and allegedly even thrown him to the ground - although the notary later crossed out the latter accusations.

Was Olfert Dapper a scholar with a short fuse, or was especially his brother Gerrit the temper? It remains guesswork. The fact is that Dapper Street is not named for a folk hero or resistance fighter, but for a brilliant, headstrong man who wrote books about worlds he had never seen for himself - and who, in his younger years, did not shy away from a slap.