Joost van den Vondel

Joost van den Vondel was born in Cologne on 17 November 1587, to Mennonite parents who were refugees from Antwerp; troubled in turn, the family moved to Amsterdam, where the father opened a hat and stocking shop in the Warmoesstraat. A stocking merchant, married in 1610 to Mayken de Wolff, he learned Latin and Greek, frequented the chamber of rhetoric Het Wit Lavendel and translated Virgil. He converted to Catholicism around 1641; ruined by his son's business dealings, he had to accept a post at the pawnbroker's in 1658. He died in Amsterdam on 5 February 1679, at the age of ninety-one.

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• TheatreLuciferJoost van den Vondel · 1654Literature