Jan van der Does

Jan van der Does in an engraving by Cornelis Visscher , 1649.

Monument erected in Leiden in 1924 in honor of Wilhelm von Oranien (above) and Louis de Boisot , Jan van der Does and Jan van Hout (from left).

Jan van der Does ( Latinized Ianus Dousa ; born December 6, 1545 in Noordwijk ; † October 8, 1604 ibid) was a Dutch scholar, poet and statesman. He is considered one of the outstanding personalities of the 16th century in the Netherlands, was instrumental in the wars of liberation against the Spaniards and then also in the founding of the first Dutch university in Leiden .

Life

Jan van der Does was born on the estates of his lower nobility family in Noordwijk, of which he was to become the most important representative. His parents Johan van der Does and Anna van Nijenrode died when he was five years old, and his maternal grandfather took over his upbringing. He studied from 1561 to 1564 at the universities of Leuven , Douai and Paris . In 1565 he married Elizabeth van Zuylen. They had 12 children, of which seven were boys and two girls reached adulthood. One son in particular, Janus Dousa Filius , was as promising scientifically as his father, but died at the age of 25. Another son, Frans van der Does , conducted research under the guidance of Joseph Justus Scaliger on the fragments of the Roman satirist Gaius Lucilius .

Due to the protest of the Geusen against the Spanish occupiers - he was one of the aristocrats who petitioned the Spanish governor Margarethe von Parma in 1566 (aristocratic consort of Breda) - von der Does had to flee and leave the Netherlands. He did not return until 1572 and was initially sent to Spain on a secret mission by William I of Orange . He was able to distinguish himself even more in 1574 as the commander of the armed citizens in the successful defense of suffering against the Spanish besiegers. During the siege he was made governor suffering. When the University of Leiden was founded in 1575, he was appointed its first curator. After Orange's death, van der Does was again ambassador to England. In 1591 he became a member of the high judicial council and remained this as well as curator of the university until his death. From 1585 to 1593 he was the first director of the university library, he was succeeded by his son of the same name. He was at the beginning of a number of important library directors, including Daniel Heinsius , Johann Friedrich Gronovius , Friedrich Spanheim , Pieter Burman the Elder , David Ruhnken , Daniel Albert Wyttenbach and Jacob Geel .

Of even greater importance than the political and military offices and successes of van der Does' were his achievements as a scholar. In Delft he was a pupil of Heinrich Junius , in Paris he studied with Jean Dorat at the Collège des lecteurs royaux . Thanks to his poetic talent and his good knowledge of the Latin language, he was considered one of the most important Latin poets of his time. His epigrammata based on the model of Martial and his collection of Nova Poemata are known . Of particular importance was an ode to Elizabeth I. But he was also very interested in the history and literature of the Netherlands. Together with Jan van Hout , he translated the Basia of Janus Secundus into Dutch. In 1591 von der Does edited the rhyming chronicle of Melis Stoke . He began to write annals , which he continued to write thanks to his own large collection of manuscripts, and which his son later continued. In doing so, however, he also recorded events in a rather uncritical way that later turned out to be fictional. The most important study content, however, were the ancient Latin authors. He wrote introductions ( Praecidanea ) to the works of Catullus , Tibullus , Petronius and the Explanationes Plautinae des Plautus . He wrote a short commentary on selected passages from the work of Horace , notes on the work of Sallust .

Tomb in Noordwijk

It was not until 1792 that descendants erected a tomb in the Sint Jeroenskerk of Noordwijk in memory of their famous ancestors. In 1924 a memorial was erected in Leiden, one of which is dedicated to van der Does. Portraits were created by Cornelis Visscher and Jacobus Houbraken , among others .

literature

• Pieter Lodewijk Muller:  Does, Johann van der . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 293 f.
• Eckard Lefèvre , Eckart Schäfer (eds.): Ianus Dousa. Neo-Latin poet and classical philologist. Narr, Tübingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-8233-6525-9 ( table of contents )

Web links

Commons : Jan van der Does  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Publications by and about Jan van der Does in VD 16 .
• Publications by and about Jan van der Does in VD 17 .
• Portraits by Jan van der Does