The Waag

In front of you, in the middle of the Nieuwmarkt, is one of the oldest buildings in Amsterdam. It looks like a castle, and in a way it was one: this was St Anthony's Gate, one of the entrances through the medieval city wall. The date of 1488 usually given is disputed, and some historians believe the core may date from around 1425.

1From gate to weigh house

When the city grew and the wall ended up inside it, the inner courtyard was roofed over in 1617 and 1618 and the building became a 'waag', the place where goods were officially weighed. The guilds moved into the upper floors: smiths, painters, masons and surgeons. Each had its own door in one of the towers.

2The theatre of the dead

The surgeons' guild used the building as an anatomy theatre. Public dissections were held there, mostly in winter, when the cold kept the bodies better. The corpses were usually those of executed criminals, condemned at the town hall on Dam Square. The public paid to get in, and each session was both a scientific lesson and a spectacle.

'The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp', painted by Rembrandt in 1632, shows one of these guild dissections.

Around 1690 the hall beneath the central dome was added, giving the building its present silhouette. The towers also served as a prison, and in the 19th century the building came close to being demolished.

3What to look out for

• The tower doors: above some of them you can still see the emblems of the guilds.
• The octagonal central tower, where the anatomy theatre was.
• The thickness of the walls, almost two metres.