Dresden history

     Before I left, my friend T asked what I was planning to do in Dresden. In fact, his question was, "I don't quite know how to say this, but what is Dresden known for, besides being bombed?" Well, a fair bit actually. Dresden was the capital of Saxony and a leading European city, but it gained importance in the late 1600s,  when its ruler, Augustus the Strong, also became the King of Poland. Augustus followed the lead of the Sun King, and made Dresden a cultural capital, building vast baroque palaces, buying art, and supporting the sciences.
     Augustus' heirs followed his lead, and the museums here are excellent. I have visited three art museums and two treasure vaults. I've been looking at paintings from Vermeer, Raphael, Rubens and Dürer until I'm dreaming of Old Masters. The treasure vaults are collections of royal jewels, solid gold tea services, and pretty much any object that you could make completely unusable by encrusting it with precious metals, jewels, and crystal. It was amazing. Want to see a cherry pit carved with a 150 faces? They've got one, and only a king could afford it.
     My favorite museum, though, has been the Mathematics and Physics Salon. It's a collection of time pieces, measuring devices, and globes that were cutting age technology, back when they were made in the sixteen through eighteenth centuries. I'm pretty sure that I was the only person who spent three hours in those three rooms, but, hey, that's what happens when a physicist wanders into a physics museum.
     One quirky historical fact about Dresden (and the state if Saxony overall) is that was historically Protestant, being very close to where Martin Luther lived. Good old King Augustus (and his heirs) were Catholic, though, which was required so that they could rule Poland. Catholics, as a rule, had no rights in the entire state, except that the king was one. I don't know anywhere else where something like that happened.