Georg Marggrafe (1610-1643) is today hailed as the principal author of an influential account of the natural history of Northern Brazil and as compiler of the first accurate map of the area, which is considered as one of the most elegant products of seventeenth-century Dutch cartography. But initial he had the ambition to become known in astronomy. With the support Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, then governor-general of colonial Dutch Brazil, he built in Recife the first European-style astr...

In early modern Europe, agents were everywhere. They engaged in the transmission of political news, were employed on diplomatic missions and negotiated economic, cultural and intellectual dealings between patrons and clients. The agents' extensive networks, established in order to succeed professionally on one level, often provided them with an ideal resource for the execution of additional offices. This book presents agents from different professional groups - artists, soldiers, clergymen, d...

Sovereignty is a key issue in the baroque, and especially in the Dutch Republic with its incredibly complicated political organisation. Consequently, in and through Joost van den Vondel's theatre plays, sovereignty was explored. Vondel sensed a fundamental problem in the construction of Europe’s politico-cultural 'house'. The questions he asked with respect to that construction concerned the relation between theology and politics, also in terms of gender and culture. Since these questions co...

Many of the most significant studies devoted to Ambrogio Spinola have focused on one particular aspect of his life: his successful military career. This volume, through its interdisciplinary and cultural approach, breaks open this all too narrow perspective and expands our understanding of Spinola and his world. As a great military strategist and Catholic knight, entrepreneur in the international finance market, courtier and diplomat, Spinola was certainly a Genoese, but he was also a member ...

In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries saw the rise of a lively market for practical and instructive books that targeted non-specialist readers. This study shows how woodcuts in vernacular books on medicine and astrology fulfilled important rhetorical functions in knowledge communication. These images guided readers’ perceptions of the organisation, visualisation, and reliability of knowledge. Andrea van Leerdam uncovers the assumptions and intentions of book producer...

The unpublished writings of a Dutch colonial official, Pieter Albert Bik (1798-1855) are studied and contextualized in this book. The remarkable autobiographical manuscript of Bik, which is here presented in English translation with annotations, provides a unique glimpse of the wide horizons of the world of Dutch colonialism, tracing his many journeys in Europe, the Dutch East Indies and Japan as well as across the oceans in the first half of the nineteenth century.

In this work, Mikko Toivan...

The Dutch Cemetery in Nagasaki is the oldest, still existing, graveyard for foreigners from the West in Japan. It reflects the many important events in the shared history of The Netherlands and Japan, especially with regard to Nagasaki.

The small, intimate cemetery, enclosed by a red brick wall, is located in the foothills of Mount Inasa on the grounds of the Buddhist temple Goshinji.

During the 17th, 18th, and 19th century hundreds of VOC servants, mostly sailors on board ships in port, but...

During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln’s administration engaged in protracted negotiations with representatives of the Netherlands to aid in the voluntarily colonization of free African Americans to Suriname. Scores of diplomatic letters in Dutch, English, and French, dating to the period 1862 to 1866 attest to the very real possibility that such a migration stream could have become a reality. They also indicate reasons why this scheme failed: it was bogged down by differe...