Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

Constantijn Sr. may have encountered the book and the manners it promotes in many
ways. First of all, the curriculum developed by his father, the diplomat Christiaan
Huygens Sr., retold and sharpened by Constantijn Sr. himself in his autobiography of his
youth, 63 has been seen to resemble the ideal courtly education as extractable from Il
Cortegiano by modern commentators (see Chapter IV, section ii). 64
Whether or not “Il Cortegiano” was handed over from father to son, Constantijn had
many other occasions that made an encounter with the book likely. On his first diplomatic
assignment – his accompaniment of Van Aerssen’s mission to the Republic of Venice – the
young Constantijn Sr. by his own account impressed the Doge with his fluency in the
Italian language. But more than a court, Venice also had an active printing press, and “Il
Cortegiano” knew many reprints there over the first two centuries after the book’s first
edition. 65 A few years later, Constantijn Sr. was in England and resided at the house of the
Killigrews where he met the English poets John Donne and Ben Johnson, the later Lord
Chancellor, Sir Francis Bacon and the renowned Dutch instrument-maker Cornelis
Drebbel, only a few people in their wide courtly, artistic and intellectual network. 66 It was
Sir Henry Killigrew, a renowned courtier (1525 – 1603), who had given Thomas Hoby’s
first English translation of Il Cortegiano to Mary Queen of Scots. Huygens became close
friends with Henry’s son, Sir Robert Killigrew, a diplomat of great cultural standing,
known just like his father as a “complete gentleman.” 67 It was through their mediation that
Catalogus der bibliotheek van Constantyn Huygens verkocht op de groote zaal van het hof te 's-Gravenhage 1688.
Opneuw uitgegeven naar het eenig overgebleven exemplaar, 's-Gravenhage,, W.P. van Stockum & zoon.) Dates
of purchase of the books on this list are unknown, though one may perhaps speculate that Constantijn
collected most of these books in the period he needed them most: at foreign courts and during his
initiation as a diplomat. Probably Constantijn Sr. handed over several manner books to his sons as
means of education and instruction.
63 HUYGENS, C. & HEESAKKERS, C. L. (1987) Mijn jeugd, Amsterdam, Querido.
64 ALPERS, S. (1983) The art of describing : Dutch art in the seventeenth century, Chicago, University of
Chicago Press., HUYGENS, C. & HEESAKKERS, C. L. (1987) Mijn jeugd, Amsterdam, Querido.,
p137, HOFMAN, H. A. (1983) Constantine Huygens (1596-1687) : a christian-humanist bourgeoisgentilhomme
in service of the House of Orange, Utrecht, HES Uitgevers., p34
65 BURKE, P. (1996) The fortunes of the Courtier : the European reception of Castiglione's Cortegiano, University
Park, Pennsylvania State University Press., p40-1, 140-1, p158-162 (Appendix I – Editions of the
courtier 1528 – 1850). What is more, the book circulated in many translations over Europe, Huygens
speaking and reading several of these languages, and he may have bought it in any big city or received it
via the diplomatic communication networks.
66 BACHRACH, A. G. H. (1980) The role of the Huygens family in seventeenth-century Dutch culture.
IN BOS, H. J. M., RUDWICK, M. J. S., SNELDERS, H. A. M. & VISSER, R. P. W. (Eds.) Studies
on Christiaan Huygens : invited papers from the Symposium on the Life and Work of Christiaan Huygens,
Amsterdam, 22-25 August 1979. Lisse, Swets & Zeitlinger., p37
67 Ibid., p37; and also BURKE, P. (1996) The fortunes of the Courtier : the European reception of Castiglione's
Cortegiano, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press., p98: “[Sir Henry] Killigrew, a
Cornish gentleman, made the acquaintance of Thomas Hoby in Italy in his youth. Like Hoby, he
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