Daniel Heinsius

Daniel Heinsius studied at Leiden University. Training under Joseph Justus Scaliger and Franciscus Dousa is recorded. Jan Johannes Rutgers and Adolphus Vorstius are recorded as having studied under Daniel Heinsius. The recorded working language is Latin and Dutch. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are drama fiction. Places of work recorded in the authority are Leiden. Employment is recorded with Leiden University and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Work by Daniel Heinsius is recorded in the collections of KB, nationale bibliotheek, Musea Brugge and Het Scheepvaartmuseum.

Heinsius was born in Ghent. The troubles of the Spanish war drove his parents to settle first at Veere in Zeeland, then to England, next at Rijswijk and lastly at Vlissingen. In 1596, being already remarkable for his attainments, he was sent to the University of Franeker to study law under Henricus Schotanus. In 1598, he settled at Leiden for the nearly sixty remaining years of his life. There he studied under Joseph Scaliger, and there he met Marnix de St Aldegonde, Janus Dousa, Paulus Merula, Hugo Grotius and others; he was soon taken into the society of these celebrated men as their equal.

Heinsius first drew attention to himself as a Latin poet with his Senecan tragedy Auriacus, sive libertas saucia ("William of Orange, or Freedom Wounded"). In 1607/08, he wrote another tragedy, Herodes infanticida ("The Massacre of the Innocents"), which was published only in 1632. He was, however, especially prolific in writing elegies, of which a large part was dedicated to his love for a girl called Rossa. A first collection appeared in 1603. Ever larger and revised collections of his Poemata, also containing other genres, saw the light regularly. By 1628 he had contributed a Latin poem praising the renowned fencer Gerard Thibault to the front of his book Academie de L'espee.

In 1601, he published, under the pseudonym of Theocritus à Ganda ("Theocritus from Ghent"), Quaeris quid sit Amor...? ("Do you ask what love is?"), the first emblem book in Dutch. It was re-edited in 1606/07 with the title Emblemata amatoria ("Love emblems"). A second emblem book, Spiegel vande doorluchtige vrouwen ("Mirror of illustrious women"), was published in 1606. Heinsius also experimented in Dutch poetry after classical models. His efforts were collected by his friend Petrus Scriverius and published as Nederduytsche poemata ("Dutch poems") in 1616. They were greatly admired by Martin Opitz, who, in translating the poetry of Heinsius, introduced the German public to the use of the rhyming alexandrine.

In 1617, he married Ermgard Rutgers, sister of Janus Rutgersius, one of Scaliger's favorite pupils. They had two children: Nicolas (1620), who was to become a famous Latin poet and book collector, and Elizabeth (1623). At the Synod of Dort (1618-1619), Heinsius was secretary on behalf of the States General. Afterwards, he paid more attention to theology and worked on the text of the Greek New Testament for Elzevier's edition (1624, 1633). In these years, he also wrote a large didactic poem, De contemptu mortis ("On the contempt of death", 1621), which has a Christian-Stoical content. His wife died in 1633, and Heinsius got into a conflict with Claudius Salmasius, who was appointed as his colleague in 1631. He became more and more lonely and embittered. He stopped lecturing in 1647. He died in The Hague, aged 74, and was buried in Leiden. He collected some Greek manuscripts, e.g. codex 155.