a Dutch historian, poet and playwright from the period known as the Dutch Golden Age. Hooft was a prolific writer of plays, poems and letters, but he concentrated from 1618 onwards on writing his history of the Netherlands (Nederduytsche Historiën), inspired by Roman historian Tacitus. His focus was primarily on the Eighty Years' War between the Netherlands and Spain. Though he tried in this work to give a report of the events which was as impartial as possible, he did not really succeed in doing so. As a poet, he was influenced by his Renaissance contemporaries in France and Italy.
