1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aitzema, Lieuwe Van

AITZEMA, LIEUWE (Leo) VAN (1600–1669), Dutch historian and statesman, was born at Doccum, in Friesland, on the 19th of November 1600. In 1617 he published a volume of Latin poems under the title of Poemata Juvenilia, of which a copy is preserved in the British Museum. He made a special study of politics and political science and was for thirty years resident for the towns of the Hanseatic League at the Hague, where he died on the 23rd of February 1669. His most important work was the Saken van Staet in Oorlogh in ende omtrent de Vereenigte Nederlanden (14 vols. 4to, 1655–1671), embracing the period from 1621 to 1668. It contains a large number of state documents, and is an invaluable authority on one of the most eventful periods of Dutch history.

Four continuations of the history, by the poet and historian Lambert van den Bos, were published successively at Amsterdam in 1685, 1688, 1698 and 1699. The Derde Vervolg Zijnde het vierde Stuck van het Vervolgh op de Historie, &c. brings the history down to 1697.