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Much of what we know about the Early Modern era comes from the writings of that time. With the proliferation of the printing press and a somewhat more literate population, much more literature of this period is preserved (as opposed to earlier times). Whether from a novel, play, travel journal or scientific paper, these writings add greatly to our knowledge of our history.
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Denis Vairasse

borndied
1630 ca1672
a French writer, especially known for his Utopian novel, History of Sevarambes. One of the originalities of this book, presented to the manner of the works of geography or anthropology, is the integration in the novel construction of a direct criticism of the revealed and imposed religions, and in particular of the Catholicism, as practised by the Chr...
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Gangadhara Vajapeyi

aka: Gangadhara Vajapeyin, Gangadhara Vajapeyayai, Gangadhara Adhvarin, Gangadhara Suri
bornactivedied
unknown1700sunknown
a great vedic scholar of the Krishna Yajurveda from Thiruvalangadu in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu. Most importantly, he is remembered as the Guru of Bhaskararaya – one of the greatest shrauta scholar and exponent of the tantra of recent times. He wrote a rare commentary on Kuvalayananda in 1700. He also wrote Avaidika Darsana Samgraha.
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Cross-listed in ArtistsComposers

Giuseppe Valentini

aka: Straccioncino
borndied
1681, Dec 141753, Nov
an Italian violinist, painter, poet, and composer, though he is known chiefly as a composer of inventive instrumental music. He studied under Giovanni Bononcini in Rome between 1692 and 1697. From 1710 to 1727 he served as ‘Suonator di Violino, e Componitore di Musica’ to Prince Michelangelo Caetani. He also succeeded Corelli as director of the concertin...
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Jacques Vallee

aka: Sieur Des Barreaux, Vallée
borndied
1599, Dec 161673, May 9
a French poet, born in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire. His authorship of the sonnet on "Penitence", by which he is generally known, has been disputed, notably by Voltaire.
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Cross-listed in ComposersClergy

Francesco Antonio Vallotti

borndied
1697, Jun 111780, Jan 10
an Italian composer, music theorist, and organist. He was ordained as a priest in 1720. Vallotti spent a great deal of thought on the theory of harmony and counterpoint. His theoretical endeavours would culminate in 1779 with the publishing of his 167-page, four volume work, Della scienza teorica e pratica della moderna musica (On the scientific theory and p...
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Hendrik van Cuyk

aka: van Cuyck, Henricus Cuyckius
borndied
15461609, Oct 9
the second bishop of Roermond from 1596 to 1609. Hendrik van Cuyck studied in Utrecht and Leuven . In 1572 he became professor of ethics at the University of Leuven and in 1581 rector magnificus there. From 1589 to 1596 , he took the seat of Archbishop of Mechelen as a deputy general. After everybody refused to become bishop of Roermond, Cuyckius took this d...
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Abraham Jacob van der Aa

bornactivedied
1792, Dec 71839-18571857, Mar 21
a Dutch writer best known for his dictionaries. The Aardrijkskundig Woordenboek der Nederlanden (Geographical dictionary of the Netherlands) was a 14-volume gazetteer, published between 1839 and 1851. It was written with the help of a large number of regional historians and other geographers.
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Cross-listed in Legal

Christianus Petrus Eliza Robide van der Aa

aka: Christianus Petrus Eliza Robidé
bornactivedied
1791, Oct 71811-18481851, May 14
a Dutch jurist and author. In the Volksbode, which he edited and almost singlehandedly wrote from 1839 until 1847, he attacked alcohol abuse and many prejudices and traditional habits. With the same noble purpose, to educate and civilize the people, he wrote many essays as well as booklets for children.
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Jacob van der Schuere

borndied
15761643+
a Dutch Golden Age writer. He was born in Menen but moved north to Haarlem where he became a schoolmaster and wrote educational books. In 1612 he published the work Nederduytsche spellinge, which was a proposal for a comprehensive spelling of the Dutch language and in 1643 he published the math book Arithmetica oft reken-konst. He probably died in Haarlem so...
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Cross-listed in Physicians

John H. Van Evrie

bornactivedied
18141842-18791896
an American physician and defender of slavery, best known as the editor of the Weekly Day Book and the author of several books on race and slavery which reproduced the ideas of scientific racism for a popular audience. Van Evrie was the proprietor of the Weekly Day Book, a newspaper which primarily existed to propagate white supremacist ideas. Negroes and...
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Cross-listed in Architects

Sir John Vanbrugh

bornactivedied
1664, Jan1681-117261726, Mar 26
an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse (1696) and The Provoked Wife (1697), which have become enduring stage favourites but originally occasioned much controversy. He was knighted in 1714.
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Francesco Vanneschi

bornactivedied
unknown1732-1760unknown
an Italian opera manager, director and librettist. He was known as having been active as a librettist in Florence in 1732 when he wrote Enrico (later re-set with music by Galuppi) and in 1741 was appointed as a director and librettist for the King's Theatre in London.
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Marc Gilbert de Varennes

borndied
15911660
a Jesuit priest, was a French writer on heraldry from the 17th century. He is best known for his large folio book Le roy d'armes ou L'art de bien former, charger, briser, timbrer, parer, expliquer, et blasonner les armoiries: Le tout enrichy de discours d'antiquitez, d'histoires, d'eloges, & d'vne grande quantité de blasons des armes de la pluspart des i...
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Cross-listed in Artists

John Varley

borndied
17781842
an English watercolour painter and astrologer, and a close friend of William Blake. They collaborated in 1819–1820 on the book Visionary Heads, written by Varley and illustrated by Blake. He was the elder brother of Cornelius Varley.
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Vartan Pasha

aka: Hovsep Vartanian, Osep Vartanian
borndied
18131879
an Ottoman Armenian statesman, author, and journalist of the 19th century, promoted to the rank of "Pasha" after three decades in the service of the state. He is also notable for his novel "Akabi's Story" (Akabi Hikayesi), published in 1851 in Turkish written in the Armenian script (a not unusual practice in the 19th century), and for having published the bi...
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Cross-listed in Explorers

Ludovico di Varthema

aka: Barthema, Vertomannus
bornactivedied
1470 ca1502-15071517
an Italian traveller, diarist and aristocrat known for being the first non-Muslim European to enter Mecca as a pilgrim. Nearly everything that is known about his life comes from his own account of his travels, Itinerario de Ludouico de Varthema Bolognese, published in Rome in 1510. Explored Arabian Peninsula, Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia
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Cross-listed in ArchitectsArtists

Giorgio Vasari

bornactivedied
1511, Jul 301530s-1560s1574, Jun 27
an Italian painter, architect, writer and historian, most famous today for his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing.
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George Boyer Vashon

borndied
1824, Jul 251878, Oct 5
an American scholar, poet and abolitionist. He was the first African-American graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio. He was the first practicing African-American lawyer in the state of New York and was posthumously admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 2010, 163 years after being denied the right to practice in the state due to his race, first in 1847 and again ...
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Gabriel Vasquez

aka: Vásquez
borndied
15491604, Sep 23
a Spanish Jesuit theologian. He was noted for his exact knowledge of the opinions and theories of the different Schools and authors, and commendable for clearness of expression and a strict philosophical method. He made a complete study of the writings of St. Augustine, for whom he professed great devotion, as well as those of the other Fathers of the Church...
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Jean Vatout

borndied
1791, May 261848, Nov 3
a French poet and historian. Vatout was born in Villefranche-sur-Saône. He was the tenth member elected to occupy seat 4 of the Académie française in January 1848. He died, aged 57, at Claremont, England.
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Claude Favre de Vaugelas

borndied
1585, Jan 61650, Feb 26
a Savoyard grammarian and man of letters. Although a lifelong courtier, Claude Favre was widely known by the name of one of the landed estates he owned as seigneur of Vaugelas and baron of Peerages. His thorough knowledge of the French language and the correctness of his speech won him a place among the original members of the Académie française in 1634. O...
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Cross-listed in Physicians

Henry Vaughan

borndied
16211695
a Welsh author, physician and metaphysical poet. He is chiefly known for his religious poetry contained in Silex Scintillans, which was published in 1650, with a second part published in 1655.
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William Vaughan

borndied
15751641, Aug
a Welsh writer and colonial investor. His chief work is The Golden Grove (1600), a general guide to morals, politics and literature, in which the manners of the time are severely criticized, plays being denounced as folly and wickedness. The section in praise of poetry borrows much from earlier writers on the subject.
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Cross-listed in Pirates

Moise Vauquelin

aka: Moses Vanclein
bornactivedied
unknown1650-1672unknown
An officer under François l'Ollonais, he also had a partnership with Pierre Le Picard. In his later years, he wrote a book detailing the coastline of Hond...
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Nicolas Vauquelin des Yveteaux

borndied
15671649
a French libertine poet, the son of Jean Vauquelin de la Fresnaye. His work consists mainly of odes, of sonnets, the stances and various other fugitive pieces, many of which were collected during his life in The Delights of Poetry Françoise or last collection of the most beautiful verses of this time in 1620.
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Thomas Vaux

aka: 2nd Baron Vaux of Harrowden
borndied
15091556
an English poet. Two of his poems were included in the Songes and Sonettes of Surrey (Richard Tottel's Miscellany), published in 1557. Thirteen pieces in the Paradise of Dainty Devices, published in 1576, are signed by him.
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Francois Vavasseur

aka: François
borndied
1605, Dec 81681, Dec 16
a French Jesuit humanist and controversialist. His first work was a paraphrase of the Book of Job in Latin hexameters (1637), resumed and accompanied by a commentary in 1679. He published also Theurgicon (1644), on the miracles of Christ, "Elegiarum liber" (1656), "De ludicra dictione" (1656); took an active part in the Jansenistic controversy ("Cornelius Ja...
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Cross-listed in Military

Garcilaso de la Vega

borndied
1501 ca1536, Oct 14
a Spanish soldier and poet. Although not the first or the only one to do so, he was the most influential poet to introduce Italian Renaissance verse forms, poetic techniques, and themes to Spain. He was well-known in poetic circles during his lifetime, and his poetry has continued to be popular without interruption until the present. His poetry was published...
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Dorothea von Velen

borndied
1670, Apr 171732, Aug 21
At the age of 41 she was married to Otto Alexander von Velen, whom the elector made Bailiff of Seltz. When the elector died, the new elector, expelled her from her apartment in the Electoral Palace, thinking her a stain on his brother's memory. News of her subsequent disappearance scandalised Europe. Without any explanation, she resurfaced in 1717 in Amsterd...
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Juan Velez de Guevara

aka: Vélez de Guevara
borndied
16111675, Nov 20
son of Luis Vélez de Guevara, was, like his father, a Spanish playwright of the Golden Age. Well known in his day as a composer of short theatrical pieces, notably entremeses and bailes, many of them performed at the Spanish Court, Vélez junior likewise wrote and published full-length plays.
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Luis Velez de Guevara

aka: Vélez de Guevara
borndied
1579,Aug 11644, Nov 10
a Spanish dramatist and novelist. Velez de Guevara was the author of over four hundred plays, of which the best are Reinar despues de morir, La Luna de la Sierra, and El Diablo está en Cantillana.
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Alexander Veltman

borndied
1800, Jul 181870, Jan 11
one of the most successful Russian prose writers of the 1830s and 1840s, "popular for various modes of Romantic fiction — historical, Gothic, fantastic, and folkloristic". He was one of the pioneers of Russian science fiction.
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Vemana

aka: Kumaragiri Vema Reddy, Gona Vema Buddha Reddy
borndied
1652 caunknown
a great Telugu philosopher and poet. His poems were written in Telugu, and are known for their use of simple language and native idioms. His poems discuss the subjects of Yoga, wisdom and morality. He is popularly called Yogi Vemana, in recognition of his success in the path of Yoga.
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Gavril Stefanovic Venclovic

bornactivedied
unknown1680-1749unknown
a Serbian priest, writer, poet, orator, philosopher, and illuminator. He was one of the first and most notable representatives of Serbian Baroque literature (although he worked in the first half of 18th century, as Baroque trends in Serbian literature emerged in the late 17th century). But Venclovi?'s most unforgettable service to his nation was his initial ...
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Dmitry Venevitinov

borndied
1805, Sep 141827, Mar 15
a minor Russian Romantic poet who died (perhaps committed suicide) at the age of 21, carrying with him one of the greatest hopes of Russian literature. He was one of the Russian Schellingians. Of noble parentage, Venevitinov entered the Moscow University in 1824. He became a member of the circle of "wisdom-lovers" (Lyubomudry), led by Prince Vladimir Odoevsk...
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Polydore Vergil

aka: Polidoro Virgili, Polydore Vergil of Urbino
borndied
1470 ca1555, Apr 18
an Italian humanist scholar, historian, priest and diplomat who spent most of his life in England. He is particularly remembered for his works the Proverbiorum libellus (1498), a collection of Latin proverbs; De inventoribus rerum (1499), a history of discoveries and origins; and the Anglica Historia (drafted by 1513; printed 1534), an influential history of...
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Maria Versfelt

aka: Ida Saint-Elme, Elzelina av Aylde Jonghe, La Contemporaine
borndied
1776, Sep 271845, May 19
a Dutch writer and stage actress, known for her adventurous life. In 1827, she published her memoirs Mémoires d'une Contemporaine (8 parts, 1827–1828), which made her famous. She died, aged 68, in Brussels.
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Jones Very

borndied
1813, Aug 281880, May 8
an American poet, essayist, clergyman, and mystic associated with the American Transcendentalism movement. He was known as a scholar of William Shakespeare and many of his poems were Shakespearean sonnets. He was well-known and respected amongst the Transc...
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Cross-listed in Physicians

Andreas Vesalius

borndied
1514, Dec 311564, Oct 15
a 16th-century Flemish/Netherlandish anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body). Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. He was born in Brussels, which though now part of Belgium, was then part of the Habsburg Netherlands. H...
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Cross-listed in Educators

Ludvig Vibe

borndied
1803, Sep 261881, Jun 21
a Norwegian classical philologist and educator. He was Professor of Greek language at the Royal Frederick University from 1838. He is known for translating The Birds and Prometheus Bound, and also for a work on Spartan governance named Hvad var Spartas Ekklesii. He was, however, most interested in preserving the position of the classical languages in society...
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Gil Vicente

aka: The Trobadour
borndied
1465 ca1536 ca
a Portuguese playwright and poet who acted in and directed his own plays. Considered the chief dramatist of Portugal he is sometimes called the "Portuguese Plautus," often referred to as the "Father of Portuguese drama" and as one of Western literature's greatest playwrights. Also noted as a lyric poet, Vicente worked in Portuguese as much as he worked in Sp...
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Domingo de Vico

borndied
unknown1555
a Spanish Dominican friar during the Spanish conquest of Chiapas and the conquest of Guatemala in the 16th century. In 1544, Francisco Marroquín, bishop of Guatemala, charged Domingo de Vico with producing a treatise upon Indian idolatry. The work contained instructions to Dominicans upon how to use indigenous beliefs in their sermons in Chiapas and Guatema...
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Cross-listed in Legal

Giambattista Vico

borndied
1668, Jun 231744, Jan 23
an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist, who is recognized as one of the greatest Enlightenment thinkers. He criticized the expansion and development of modern rationalism and was an apologist of classical antiquity. Vico is best known for his magnum opus, the Scienza Nuova of 1725, often published in English as New Science.
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Cross-listed in Educators

Ole Vig

borndied
1824, Feb 61857, Dec 19
a Norwegian teacher, poet, non-fiction writer, magazine editor and proponent for public education. He edited the magazine Folkevennen from 1851, published the poetry collection Norske Bondeblomster in 1851, and the history book Norges historie indtil Harald Haarfagre in 1857. His poem and national hymn "Nordmandssang" ("Blandt alle Lande") was published in S...
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Cross-listed in Physicians

Yianis Vilaras

borndied
17711823
a Greek doctor, lyricist and writer with important use on linguistic questions. Ioannis Vilaras was one of the first modern Greek poets in the history and he taught the basis of modern Greek literature. He used Modern Greek and not the Ancient and he wrote in historic orthography including tones.
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Cross-listed in ExplorersGovernance

Gaspar Perez de Villagra

aka: Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá
borndied
15551620
a captain and legal officer (procurador general) in the Juan de Oñate expedition that first colonized Santa Fe de Nuevo México in 1598. Between 1601 and 1603, he served as the Alcalde mayor of the Guanacevi mines in what is now the Mexican state of Durango. He is better known for his authorship of Historia de la Nueva México, published in 1610.
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Cross-listed in Astronomers

Yvon Villarceau

borndied
1813, Jan 151883, Dec 23
a French astronomer, mathematician, and engineer. He constructed an equatorial meridian-instrument and an isochronometric regulator for the Paris Observatory. He wrote Mécanique Céleste. Expose des Méthodes de Wronski et Composantes des Forces Perturbatrices suivant les Axes Mobiles (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1881) and Sur l'établissement des arches de po...
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Cosme de Villiers

borndied
16831758
a French Carmelite bibliographer. Born in Saint-Denis, near Paris, he joined the Carmelite order and from 1709 to 1727 was lecturer in philosophy or theology in various convents of the order, particularly Nantes, Hennebont, and Saint-Pol-de-Léon. He later became a preacher in Orléans, where he died. He was the author of the Bibliotheca carmelitana (2 vols,...
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Cross-listed in Governance

George Villiers [2]

aka: 2nd Duke of Buckingham, 20th Baron de Ros
borndied
1628, Jan 301687, Apr 16
an English statesman and poet. George was the son of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, favourite of James I and Charles I, and his wife Katherine Manners. He was only seven months old when his father was assassinated at Portsmouth by the renegade officer John Felton. Subsequently he was brought up in the royal household of Charles I, together with his...
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Aasmund Olavsson Vinje

borndied
1818, Apr 61870, Jul 30
a famous Norwegian poet and journalist who is remembered for poetry, travel writing, and his pioneering use of Landsmål (now known as Nynorsk). Vinje founded the periodical Dølen (The dales-man) in 1858, in which he published travel accounts, and editorial comments on art, language and politics that serve as records for the period in which he lived. Dølen...
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Cross-listed in Architects

Eugene Viollet-le-Duc

bornactivedied
1814, Jan 271830-18741879, Sep 17
a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings. Born in Paris, he was a major Gothic Revival architect.
Links (11)Notes (1)


Cross-listed in GovernancePhysiciansScientists

Rudolf Virchow

borndied
1821, Oct 131902, Sep 5
a German doctor, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician, known for his advancement of public health. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" because his work helped to discredit humourism, bringing more science to medicine. He is also known as the founder of social medicine and veterinary pathology, and t...
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Cross-listed in Artists

Anna Roemers Visscher

borndied
1584, Feb 2 ca1651, Dec 6
a Dutch artist, poet, and translator. she had an apparent interest in emblem books, as she translated into Dutch thirteen epigrams from Georgette de Montenay's Emblèmes, ou devises chrestiennes of 1584. She also contributed poetry to the 1618 emblem book, Silenus Alcibiadis, Sive Proteus by Jacob Cats.


Maria Tesselschade Visscher

borndied
1594, Mar 251649, Jun 20
a Dutch poet and engraver. She and her sister Anna Visscher were the only two women members of the Muiderkring, the group of Dutch Golden Age intellectuals who met at Muiden Castle. She is often characterised as a muse of the group.
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Roemer Visscher

borndied
15471620
a successful Dutch merchant and writer of the Dutch Golden Age. The humanistic and moralistic content of his works belongs to the period of the Renaissance, although the form was more conservative and characteristic to the rederijkers. Visscher was a specialist in the epigram, but he also wrote emblemata.
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Stavrianos Vistiaris

bornactivedied
unknown1600sunknown
a Greek poet born in the village of Malcani, in modern Sarande District, a region of Albania that Greeks refer to as Northern Epirus. He became renowned because of his extensive epic poem: Braveries of the noble and valiant voevode Michael. The poem was written around 1602 in a medieval Greek dialect; at the time Vistiaris was working at the court of the rul...
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Cross-listed in Legal

Francisco de Vitoria

aka: Victoria
borndied
1483 ca1546, Aug 12
a Spanish Renaissance Roman Catholic philosopher, theologian and jurist. He is the founder of the tradition in philosophy known as the School of Salamanca, noted especially for his contributions to the theory of just war and international law. Notes of his lectures from 1527-1540 were copied by students and published under various titles.
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Jeronimo de Vivar

aka: Jerónimo
bornactivedied
unknown1540s-1560sunknown
a Spanish historian of the early conquest and settlement of the Kingdom of Chile, and author of Crónica y relación copiosa y verdadera de los reinos de Chile. He often wrote based on reports of others that had witnessed the events from the time of the first settlement, including official documents.
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Juan Luis Vives

borndied
1493, Mar 61540, May 6
a Valencian scholar and Renaissance humanist who spent most of his adult life in the Southern Netherlands. His beliefs on the soul, insight into early medical practice, and perspective on emotions, memory and learning earned him the title of the "father" of modern psychology. Vives was the first to shed light on some key ideas that established how we perceiv...
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Cross-listed in Artists

Christian Leberecht Vogel

borndied
unknownunknown
a German painter, draughtsman and writer on art theory. Very little is known about his life. His pupils included Louise Seidler, and he was the father of the court painter and art professor Carl Christian Vogel.
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Cross-listed in Educators

Volrath Vogt

borndied
1817, Feb 141889, Jul 19
a Danish-born Norwegian theologian and schoolteacher, who is particularly known for his biblical stories for schoolchildren. He was born in Reerslev, Denmark, and grew up in Norway. He was teacher at the Christiania Cathedral School for fifty years, from 1839 to 1889. His textbook Bibelhistorie med Lidt af Kirkens Historie from 1858 became widely used in sch...
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Vincent Voiture

borndied
15971648
a French poet and writer of prose. He published nothing in book form, but his verses and his prose letters (published after his death) were the delight of the coteries, and were copied, handed about and admired more perhaps than the work of any contemporary.
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Alexander Volck

bornactivedied
unknown1740s-1750sunknown
the city scribe for the Wetteravian town of Büdingen in Hesse, Germany during the mid 18th century. He was, for a time, a member of the Moravian Church, but eventually left the church and became one of its most vociferous critics; authoring The Revealed Secret of the Malice of the Herrnhuter Sect, seven volumes printed between 1748–1751, which attacked Ni...
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Cross-listed in Performers

Princess Zinaida Volkonskaya

borndied
1792, Dec 141862, Jan 24
a Russian writer, poet, singer, composer, salonist and lady in waiting. She was an important figure in 19th-century Russian cultural life. As an amateur opera singer, she performed in Paris and London. In the 1820s the "Corinna of the North" hosted a literary and musical salon on Tverskaya Street in Moscow, in a mansion later rebuilt into the Yeliseyev food ...
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Voltaire

aka: François-Marie Arouet
bornactivedied
1694, Nov 211713-17781778, May 30
a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical...
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Cross-listed in Composers

Bettina von Arnim

aka: Bettine, Bettina Brentano, Beans Beor
borndied
1785, Apr 41859, Jan 20
a German writer, novelist, publisher, composer, singer, visual artist, an illustrator, patron of young talent, and a social activist. She published her first song under the pseudonym Beans Beor, which she occasionally used later as well. She published two politically dissident works but evaded chastisement because of her friendship with the King of Prussia.
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Karl Otto Ludwig von Arnim

borndied
1779, Aug 11861, Feb 9
a German travel writer. He studied at Halle and Göttingen, and then traveled through Europe. He was then an attaché in Stockholm, at times directing the royal theater in Berlin. In 1835, he began another series of travels, this time through southern Europe. His books of travel in France, Italy, Spain, Russia, and the orient, Hurried remarks of a traveler i...
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Cross-listed in Inventors

Wolfgang von Kempelen

borndied
1734, Jan 231804, Mar 26
a Hungarian author and inventor, known for his chess-playing "automaton" hoax The Turk and for his speaking machine. Von Kempelen studied law and philosophy in Pressburg, and attended the Academy in Gyor, Vienna and Rome, but mathematics and physics also interested him. Besides German he spoke Hungarian, Latin, French, Italian, and later, some English and Ro...
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Amelie von Strussenfelt

aka: Constantina
borndied
18031847
a Swedish writer and poet. Amelie von Strussenfelt was the daughter of the courtier and nobleman Michael von Strussenfelt and Fredrika Beata Lindencrona, and the sister of the writer Ulrika von Strussenfelt. She never married, and like her sister, she worked as a governess (from 1831) and eventually set up a school (1845), a that point the most common and al...
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Ulrika von Strussenfelt

borndied
1801, May 91873, Jan 16
a Swedish writer. She was a popular writer of historical novels and has been referred to as one of the most productive Swedish novelists of her time. Early active as a translator for periodicals, she started to publish novels in the 1840s. While her novels were never met with admiration by literary critics, they were popular among the public and successful e...
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Joost van den Vondel

borndied
15871679
a Dutch poet, writer and playwright. He is considered the most prominent Dutch poet and playwright of the 17th century. His plays are the ones from that period that are still most frequently performed, and his epic Joannes de Boetgezant (1662), on the life of John the Baptist, has been called the greatest Dutch epic.
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Cross-listed in Educators

Gerardus Vossius

aka: Gerrit Janszoon Vos
borndied
15771649, Mar 19
a Dutch classical scholar and theologian. In 1600 he was made rector of the latin school in Dordrecht, and devoted himself to philology and historical theology. From 1614 to 1619 he was director of the theological college at Leiden University. In the meantime, he was gaining a great reputation as a scholar, not only in the Netherlands, but also in France an...
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Cross-listed in Artists

Sebastiaan Vrancx

aka: Sebastian, Sebastiaen
borndied
1573, Jan 221647, May 19
a Flemish Baroque painter and etcher of the Antwerp school. Most of his pictures represent biblical scenes or scenes of war, such as the sack of towns, cavalry combats, genre paintings and allegorical subjects.He was at the same time a writer of poetry, comedies and tragicomedies for the chamber of rhetoric De Violieren. He was served as dean of the Antwerp ...
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Stanko Vraz

borndied
18101851
a Croatian-Slovenian poet. Vraz was one of the most important figures of the Illyrian Movement in the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia.He was the first Croatian to earn his living as a professional writer. He wrote poems and travelogues and collected folk poems. He also translated foreign literature into Croatian.
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Cross-listed in Artists

Hans Vredeman de Vries

borndied
15271607
a Dutch Renaissance architect, painter, and engineer. Vredeman de Vries is known for his publication in 1583 on garden design and his books with many examples on ornaments (1565) and perspective (1604). Born in Leeuwarden and raised in Friesland, in 1546 Vredeman de Vries went to Amsterdam and Kampen. In 1549 he moved to Mechelen. Vredeman de Vries tried to ...
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Vrind

borndied
16431723
an Indian saint and poet in Hindi language from Marwar, in present Rajasthan. He was an important poet of the Ritikal period of Hindi literature, known for his poems on ethics (Niti), and most known for his work Nitisatsai (1704), a collection of 700 aphorisms. He was the guru of Raj Singh (r. 1706–1748), ruler of Kishangarh, where he was court poet.
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Pyotr Vyazemsky

bornactivedied
1792, Jul 231813-18771878, Nov 22
a leading personality of the Golden Age of Russian poetry. In the 1820s Vyazemsky was the most combative and brilliant champion of what then went by the name of Romanticism. Though it was precisely in his last years that his poetical talent bore its best fruit, he was forgotten and abandoned by critics and public long before he died.
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