Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

is worthwhile to draw a substantial background of his own career and social background.
What were his own ambitions, professionally and socially? How did he fashion a position for
himself at court, and what does it tell about his expectations of and hopes for his sons? Would
Constantijn Sr. have a reason to keep Christiaan Jr. outside academia and seek the protection
of a noble ruler? What did Christiaan’s father know about patronage and the working of the
court and could his support be needed or relevant for his son’s professional position? Part I
handles these questions in two chapters.
In Chapter II – A “Grand Tour” de Force in self-fashioning – it is discussed how the
young Constantijn Huygens Sr. grew to be a courtier and developed a thorough understanding
of the value of music, poetry and language for social and professional self-fashioning. I discuss
the difficulty of getting back into the historical picture the human efforts of someone who
made an art of feigning effortlessness (“sprezzatura”) in his actions and writings – i.e. the
problem of describing a courtier who wrote and acted according to the best courtly manners.
Chapter III – Princely “Friendship” – sketches Constantijn Sr.’s relationship with the House
of Orange; the vast possibilities for socio-professional growth and the distinctly economic
dimension of serving under noble Dutch Stadholders. Constantijn Sr. is portrayed as an
upper-bourgeois, aiming for social elevation into a new elite – the noblesse de robe – and the far-
reaching consequences of this desire for his whole family. I give a picture of him as a double-
dyed courtier who was completely at ease in the highest echelons of society and who was
familiar with all “ins and outs” of the aristocracy. 11 Thus, Huygens could form a central node in
Prince Frederik Hendrik’s grand ambitions with the Orange Court.
The main part of this thesis is formed by Part Two – Fashioning a Courtier-
Mathematician: a Family Affair. Central stands the intersection (or even unity, at times) of the
lives and works of father (Constantijn Sr.) and son (Christiaan Jr.) Huygens. I investigate
ways in which Constantijn Sr., and more broadly, the Huygens family, secured and elevated
Christiaan Jr.’s socio-professional position, both in courtly-diplomatic and natural scientific
spheres. Notably, Christiaan Jr.’s endeavors did also contribute to his father’s ambitions in the
social and professional realm, stimulating the interaction between their pursuits. A central
theme in Part Two is formed by the conspicuous overlap between the social ambits of the
11 It will be seen that the emphasis in my thesis lies within the social, political and economic realm and
little attention is paid to matters of religion. For a comprehensive picture of either one of the Huygens, a
thorough discussion of their religious stance and the impact of religion on their life and works is, of
course, needed. I do not have the ambition to be all-inclusive, however, as my main objective is to offer a
new perspective on a mostly known complex of historical facts. Hopefully, the presented perspective
will be found interesting enough to be included in more comprehensive works in the future.
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