Jacob van Campen was a Dutch artist and architect of the Golden Age. Van Campen's first known building was the Coymans house built in 1625 in Amsterdam. In the 1630s Van Campen and Pieter Post designed the Mauritshuis in The Hague, a palace...

Andreas Cellarius was a Dutch-German cartographer, best known for his Harmonia Macrocosmica of 1660, a major star atlas, published by Johannes Janssonius in Amsterdam. He was born in Neuhausen (now a part of Worms), and was educated in H...

Constantijn Huygens was a Dutch poet and composer, Secretary to two Princes, and the father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens. He is often considered a member of what is known as the Muiderkring, a group of leading intellectuals gathered...

Pieter Jansz. Saenredam was a painter of the Dutch Golden Age, known for his distinctive paintings of whitewashed church interiors. Saenredam's paintings show medieval churches, usually Gothic, but sometimes late Romanesque, which had been...

Bonaventura Francesco Cavalieri was an Italian mathematician. He is known for his work on the problems of optics and motion, work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus, and the introduction of logarithms to Italy. Cavalieri's principl...

Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp was an officer and later admiral in the Dutch navy. Born in Den Briel, Tromp sailed the seas from the age of nine, and joined the Dutch navy as a lieutenant in 1621. His first distinction was being Piet Hein's fla...

Robert Blake was one of the most important military commanders of the Commonwealth of England and one of the most famous English admirals of the 17th century, whose successes have "never been excelled, not even by Nelson" according to one b...

Gianlorenzo Bernini was a sculptor, painter and architect and a formative influence as an outstanding exponent of the Italian Baroque. He was an exceptional portrait artist and owes to his father his accomplished techniques in the handling...

Joan Blaeu was the eldest son of Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638). It was under the control of Joan that the Blaeu printing press achieved lasting fame by moving towards the printing of maps and expanding to become the largest printing pre...

Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of King Charles I of England and Scotland and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that...

Witte Corneliszoon de With was a famous Dutch naval officer of the 17th century. On his first sea voyage to the Dutch East Indies on 21 January 1616 when he was sixteen, as a cabin boy on Captain Geen Huygen Schapenham's ship the Gouden...

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader and later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. Cromwell was one of the signatories of King Charles I's death warrant in 1649, and, as a member o...

Diego Velázquez was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period. In addition to...

In the last years of the sixteenth century, the Spanish troops were driven out of the Republic. The next aim was to expand to the south. In 1600, Maurice left with 15,000 men for the port of Dunkirk - home port of the Spanish privateers who...

Hamlet, one of William Shakespeare's most popular plays, tells the story of a Danish prince haunted by the ghost of his murdered father who wants revenge against the brother (Hamlet's uncle) who poisoned him and married his wife. Hamlet tak...