A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists/Aitzema, Lieuwe van

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Aitzema, Lieuwe van, Dutch historian. B. Nov. 19, 1600. He published a volume of poems (Poemata juvenilia, 1617) in his seventeenth year, and in later life he wrote a very valuable history of the Netherlands (14 vols., 1655-1671). Bayle observes in his Dictionary that the work is hostile to the Churches, and Reimmann (Historia Universalis Atheismi, p. 479) describes the author as an Atheist. Aitzema represented the Hanseatic towns at the Hague from 1645 until his death, and he had a high repute throughout northern Europe for scholarship and integrity. D. Feb. 23, 1669.