Lieuwe (Leo) van Aitzema (19 November 1600 – 23 February 1669) was a Dutch

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

, diplomat,

bon viveur ''Bon viveur'' is an English pseudo-French expression denoting someone who enjoys the good things in life, especially food and drink. It may also refer to: * A pseudonym used jointly by writers Johnnie Cradock and Fanny Cradock Phyllis Nan Sor ...

, libertine and spy.Israel, J. (1995) The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477-1806, p. 684, 731-2. He was born at

Dokkum Dokkum is a Dutch fortified city in the municipality of Noardeast-Fryslân in the province of Friesland. It has 12,669 inhabitants (February 8, 2020). The fortifications of Dokkum are well preserved and are known as the ''bolwerken'' (bulwarks). ...

, in

Friesland Friesland (, ; official fry, Fryslân ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of ...

. In 1617 he published a volume of

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 Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

s under the title of ''Poemata Juvenilia'', of which a copy is preserved in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. He made a special study of

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

and

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

and was for thirty years resident and minister for the Hanseatic towns at

the Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, where he died on 23 February 1669. His most important work was the ''Saken van Staet in Oorlogh in ende omtrent de Vereenigte Nederlanden'' (14 vols. 4to, 1655–1671), embracing the period from 1621 to 1668. It contains a large number of state documents, and is an invaluable authority on one of the most eventful periods of Dutch history. Four continuations of the history, by the poet and historian Lambert van den Bos, were published successively at Amsterdam in 1685, 1688, 1698 and 1699. The ''Derde Vervolg Zijnde het vierde Stuck van het vervolgh op de historie, &c., '', brings the history down to 1697.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aitzema, Leo van 1600 births 1669 deaths 17th-century Dutch historians Hanseatic diplomats People from Dokkum