A few years ago, strolling around the galleries devoted to the glory of the Dutch Golden Age in the Rijksmuseum, I was caught by an assertive gaze. Leaning back comfortably in his chair, a man decadently dressed in an exotic gown enjoyed the pleasures of life to the fullest. Smoking his pipe, glass of wine within reach, he experiences the company of a scantily clad table guest: a prostitute sunk in one of his books on sexual libertinage. It is the startling likeness of the writer of one of the most controversial early modern treatises on mankind's original sin, Hadrianus Beverland (1650–1716). By the time this portrait was painted, the talented and young classicist could have hardly foreseen how his fate would quickly take a turn for the worse. Only a few years later, in 1679, his writings were banned and he was expelled from Leiden University and banished from the provinces of Holland and Zeeland. In disgrace, the disillusioned and exiled scholar moved to England, where he spent his remaining days, wandering the streets of London, muttering to himself about the enemies hiding in the shadows and conspirators waiting to ambush him.

Although Beverland has sparked the interest of numerous historians over the last century, considerations of his peculiar life and provocative works have, up until now, predominantly featured as sidenotes in larger discussions on the early or radical Enlightenment and the early modern history of sexuality, leaving one pertinent question remaining: why was this young, talented, and well-connected humanist scholar exiled from one of the most tolerant regions of Enlightenment Europe? Addressing this historiographic lacuna, Hollewand's excellent monograph seeks to answer this question in four densely informed and thematically organized chapters, building a solid argument by meticulously analyzing an extensive amount of (archival) source materials previously left practically untouched. In the first two chapters, Hollewand convincingly contends that, contrary to what is often believed, neither Beverland's theological views nor his biblical exegesis should be considered exceedingly radical for their time and, as such, fail to provide a satisfying explanation for his banishment. He was, as chapter 1 illustrates by placing his writing in a long tradition of Christian literature, not the first to discuss original sin as sexual lust, nor was he, as chapter 2 highlights, the only scholar in the Dutch Republic who exposed biblical inconsistencies.

It turned out a complex and unfortunate chain of events led to the downfall of the promising young scholar, as Hollewand argues in chapters 3 and 4. First and foremost, his overall insolent attitude, the satirical and polemical tone of his assault on Reformed doctrine, and his ad hominem attacks on its ministers and theologists outraged the Dutch Reformed Church. It provoked them to lash out and to utilize their political power to get him arrested and convicted. The querulant had anticipated a fierce response by church authorities, yet expected the scholarly community to jump into the breach. Their support, however, failed to materialize. On the contrary, Beverland's equally provocative writing undermined the authority of the classical canon, revealing its obscene content and the ambivalent sexual mores and practices which pervaded it; Beverland was seen as a threat to the very foundations of the humanist scholarly tradition. Consequently, his fellow classicists turned their backs on him, especially when he refused to back down and keep his inflammatory pleas for sexual liberty—including the legalization of premarital and extramarital sexual relations, as well as sexual encounters with prostitutes—to himself. Without the support of the scholarly community, his fate was definitively sealed.

By placing Beverland's polemical writings on sex, sin, and scholarship in their historical context, Hollewand not only succeeds in formulating a convincing answer to the central question, but also presents a fascinating perspective on the turbulent and rapidly changing intellectual climate in the Dutch Republic at the dawn of the Enlightenment, often represented by well-known names like Spinoza and Koerbagh. In doing so, Hollewand's vivid textual portrait of the downfall of one of the most enigmatic scholars of his day is perhaps even more striking than his fascinating likeness nowadays in the Rijksmuseum.