Palace of Commerce invites you to discover the hidden past of Amsterdam’s Royal Palace. It reveals this magnificent buildings’ origin as Amsterdam’s City Hall in the seventeenth century, the ‘Dutch Golden Age’. Contemporaries praised the building for its beauty. Its size and splendour reflect the city’s prime position in international trade across the globe, as well as the dignity of its urban regents and administrative officials. Those who enter the Royal Palace today can hardly imagine that this building was once a bustling collection of offices and courtrooms. It even included a prison! What originally happened in its now so serene marble halls? Who could be found in its rooms full of paintings and sculpture on a daily basis, when the building’s corridors were still swarming with citizens and businessmen from all corners of the world? Using the art and architecture visible today as our point of departure, the authors shed light on the history of early modern Amsterdam through the eyes of those who ruled and dispensed justice. The regents and administrative officials who frequented the floors of Amsterdam’s global centre of commerce, finance, law, and governance are introduced in a compelling selection of short and richly illustrated stories. Preface 7 introduction 9 Window: Amsterdam’s 750th Birthday? 15 burgomasters 17 Window: Dr. Nicolaes Tulp 27 sheriff and aldermen 28 Window: Prison and Punishment 35 the city council 37 Window: Messengers and Couriers 42 the secretaries’ office 43 Window: Schepenkennissen 50 the treasury 54 Window: Centre of Global Commerce and Shipping 59 the chamber of insurance and average 62 Window: City of Migrants 68 the chamber of insolvent and abandoned estates 71 Window: Odysseus and Nausicaa 78 the orphan chamber 80 Window: Titus van Rijn 87 conclusion 88 Glossary 92 Bibliography 95 Index 101 About the Authors 103