Govert Bidloo

Portrait with scalpel as the new Vesalius, by Gerard de Lairesse, engraved by Abraham Blooteling, the frontispiece to his anatomical atlas.

Govert Bidloo or Govard Bidloo (12 March 1649 – 30 March 1713) was a Dutch Golden Age physician, anatomist, poet and playwright. He was the personal physician of William III of Orange-Nassau, Dutch stadholder and King of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Bidloo was also a prolific and popular poet, opera librettist, and playwright. He wrote the libretto for the first-ever Dutch opera, Bacchus, Ceres en Venus (1686) by Johan Schenck. His collected works were published in three volumes after his death.

One of Bidloo's students was his nephew Nicolaas Bidloo, who would go on to become the personal physician of Russian czar Peter the Great, and also founded a medical school in Moscow.


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