Joost van den Vondel

Born in Cologne in 1587 to a Mennonite family from Antwerp, he grew up in Amsterdam after his family moved north during a time of religious upheaval. Although he did not receive a formal classical education early on, he became one of the Dutch Republic's greatest writers through wide reading, self-education, and a remarkable gift for language.

He is best known as a poet, playwright, and translator, and is often regarded as the leading literary figure of the Dutch Golden Age. Among his most famous works are the plays Gijsbrecht van Aemstel, Lucifer, and Adam in Ballingschap. His writing often drew on the Bible, classical literature, and the political and religious conflicts of his day, giving it both grandeur and urgency.

Later in life he converted to Catholicism, a significant step in the largely Protestant Dutch Republic, and that spiritual seriousness shaped much of his later work. He died in Amsterdam in 1679, but his reputation endured so strongly that he came to be known in the Netherlands as the "Prince of Poets."