Johannes Bouwmeester
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Johannes Bouwmeester (4 November 1634 - buried 22 October 1680) was a Dutch physician, philosopher and a founding member of the literary society '' Nil volentibus arduum''. He enrolled at Leiden University in 1651 and in 1658 graduated there in medicine. He was a close friend of
Lodewijk Meyer Lodewijk Meyer (also Meijer) (bapt. 18 October 1629, Amsterdam – buried 25 November 1681, Amsterdam) was a Dutch physician, classical scholar, translator, lexicographer, and playwright. He was a radical intellectual and one of the more pro ...
, co-founder of ''Nil volentibus arduum'', and acquainted with the philosophers Benedictus de Spinoza and Adriaen Koerbagh. His father, Claes Bouwmeester, was tailor by trade and several family members were builders of musical instruments. He was born in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
. At least one letter by Spinoza to Bouwmeester (no. 37) is known and another letter to an anonymous correspondent may also have been addressed at him (no. 28), although this is generally inaccurately stated as a fact in most editions of Spinoza's correspondence. In 1663 he wrote a
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
poem for Spinoza's '' Renati Descartes principia philosophiae'' and he is also believed to be the author of the small poem under the engraved portrait of Spinoza found in some editions of the ''Opera posthuma'' (1677). In the second half of the 1660s he traveled to
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, where on 30 September 1667 he enrolled in
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
at the
University of Padua The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from ...
. In 1672 he translated the philosophical novel ''Het leeven van Hai Ebn Yokdhan'', based on an earlier Latin translation by
Edward Pococke Edward Pococke (baptised 8 November 160410 September 1691) was an English Orientalist and biblical scholar. Early life The son of Edward Pococke (died 1636), vicar of Chieveley in Berkshire, he was brought up at Chieveley and educated from a y ...
, and published in Amsterdam by Jan Rieuwertsz. Bouwmeester was also involved in the publication of Spinoza's works.


References

{{philosopher-stub 1634 births 1680 deaths