Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

first as a student, and then as a scholar and editor. 78 He is best known today for his historical and
geographical works, including the Nieuwe Wereldt, Ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien (The
New World, or a Description of the West Indies), a comprehensive text that integrated the vast
Iberian, Italian, French and English literature on the Western Hemisphere with the latest findings
of Dutch mariners. 79 He also is known also for a series of “pocket” histories that he helped to
edit for the Leiden publisher Elsevier and an acrimonious debate that he carried on with Grotius
over the origins of the Native Americans. 80 Less well know, but central to his place within the
rich and dynamic intellectual environment of early seventeenth century Leiden, were his editions
of classical authors such as Vitruvius and Pliny and his twenty-year project to compile the first
major dictionary of Anglo-Saxon. 81 De Laet was also an investor, and in 1620 he committed a
sizable sum to the new WIC and became one of its first directors, representing the city of Leiden
in the Amsterdam chamber. His appearance in the Heren XIX in September of 1645 and the
78 The best biographical account remains J. A. F. Bekkers, ed., “Introduction,” in Correspondence of John Morris
with Johannes de Laet (Assen: Van Gorcum and Comp., 1970), XI–XXVII.
79 Johannes de Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt: Ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien (Leiden: Isaac Elzevier, 1625). On De
Laet, see also Jaap Jacobs, “Johannes de Laet en de Nieuwe Wereld,” Jaarboek van het Centraal Bureau voor
Genealogie 50 (1996): 108–130; De Laet, Suiker, Verfhout & Tabak.
80 J. A. Gruys, “De Reeks ‘Republieken’ van de Elzeviers en Joannes de Laet,” in Boekverkopers van Europa: Het
17de-eeuwse Nederlandse Uitgevershuis Elzevier, ed. B. P. M. Dongelmans, P. G. Hoftijzer, and O. S. Lankhorst
(Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2000.), 77–106. On Grotius and De Laet, see Herbert F. Wright, “The Controversy of
Hugo Grotius with Johan de Laet on the Origin of the American Aborigines,” Catholic Historical Review 3 (1917):
257–275; Rubiés, “Hugo Grotius’s Dissertation on the Origin of the American Peoples and the Use of Comparative
Methods”; Schmidt, “Space, Time, Travel: Hugo de Groot, Johannes de Laet, and the ‘Advancement’ of Geographic
Learning.”
81 De Laet was a close friend of Salmasius and maintained an active correspondence with Scaliger until the latter's
death. See Rolf H. Bremmer Jr., “The Correspondence of Johannes de Laet as a Mirror on his Life,” LIAS: The
Journal of Early Modern History of Ideas 25, no. 2 (1998): 139-164. On his Anglo-Saxon dictionary, see John
Morris and Joannes de Laet, Correspondence of John Morris with Johannes de Laet (1634-1649), ed. J. A. F.
Bekkers (Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp., 1970); Rolf H. Bremmer Jr., “‘Mine is Bigger Than Yours’: The Anglo-
Saxon Collection of Johannes de Laet (1581-1649) and Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1602-50),” Anglo-Saxon Books and
Their Readers, ed. Thomas N. Hall and Donald Scragg (Kalamazoo: 2008).
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