Christiaan Huygens

Antony's:

friend and colleague

Birth or Baptism date:

April 14, 1629

Death or Burial date:

July 8, 1695

Huygensweb en | nl

The Huygens family, Christiaan along with his father, Constantijn, and his brother, Constantijn jr., were the leading intellectual family in the Dutch Republic. Christiaan was a prominent mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and inventor. After an initial period of skepticism, Christiaan and Constantijn were soon vouching for Leeuwenhoek in London and Paris and became his most important Dutch supporters. See, for instance, Huygens’s Letter L-223 to Leeuwenhoek of 20 October 1692, which ends, “We ought highly to commend and admire your labour and diligence in what you communicate to us, as a result of which the knowledge of Nature is increased and corrected daily.” In Letter L-391 of 21 June 1701 to Hans Sloane, Leeuwenhoek calls Huygens “my great friend”.

Living just four miles up the Vliet from Delft, Christiaan Huygens visited and corresponded with Leeuwenhoek, especially early in his career. Leeuwenhoek addressed two letters to him, listed below.

Huygens tried his own hand at microscopes in order to replicate Leeuwenhoek's observations. He also attested to the Royal Society, of which he was a member and frequent contributor to Philosophical Transactions, about the accuracy of Leeuwenhoek's claims and the nature of his character.

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The ePistolarium has a couple dozen letters to or from Constantijn Huygens and his sons Christiaan and Constantijn jr. that refer to Leeuwenhoek.

1673-06-24
    Huygens, Christiaan to Henry Oldenburg

1673-08-08
    Huygens, Constantijn sr. to Robert Hooke

1674-02-12
    Constantijn Huygens sr. to Henry Oldenburg

1675-01-12
    Henry Oldenburg to Christiaan Huygens

1675-01-30
    Christiaan Huygens to Henry Oldenburg

1677-10
    Denis de Dodart to Christiaan Huygens

1678-03-25
    Nicolaas Hartsoeker to Christiaan Huygens

1678-03-26
    Christiaan Huygens to Constantijn Huygens jr.

1678-04-04
    Nicolaas Hartsoeker to Christiaan Huygens

1678-04-28
    Jan Swammerdam to Melchisédec Thévenot

1678-07-26
    Nehemiah Grew to Christiaan Huygens

1678-08-11
    Christiaan Huygens to Constantijn Huygens jr.

1678-11-18
    Christiaan Huygens to Constantijn Huygens jr.

1678-11-23
    Constantijn Huygens jr. to Christiaan Huygens

1678-12-09
    Christiaan Huygens to Constantijn Huygens jr.

1678-12-22
    Constantijn Huygens jr. to Christiaan Huygens

1679-07-13
    Constantijn Huygens jr. to Christiaan Huygens

1680-08-13
    Constantijn Huygens jr. to Christiaan Huygens

1680-08-30
    Christiaan Huygens jr. to Constantijn Huygens

1680-10-24
    Christiaan Huygens to Lodewijk Huygens

1684-06-19
    Christiaan Huygens to Constantijn Huygens jr.

1685-11-05
    Constantijn Huygens jr. to Christiaan Huygens

1689-10-18
    Christiaan Huygens to Lodewijk Huygens

1689-12-23
    Christiaan Huygens to Lodewijk Huygens

1690-01-06
    Constantijn Huygens jr. to Christiaan Huygens

1690-02-07
    Christiaan Huygens to Lodewijk Huygens

1691-03-02
    Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Christiaan Huygens

1692-01-18
    Constantijn Huygens jr. to Christiaan Huygens

Parents

Father:

Constantijn Huygens

Mother:

Suzanna van Baerle

Siblings

none

Surviving siblings

Constantijn 1628
Lodewijk 1631
Philips 1632
Suzanna 1637

What happened?

Date	Event
July 2, 1663	Christiaan Huygens elected member of the Royal Society
August 1, 1663	Christiaan Huygens received letter from Gutschoven about how to grind small lenses
March 26, 1665	Christiaan Huygens acquired Hooke's Micrographia
February 1, 1674	Constantijn Huygens wrote Letter L-004 to Leeuwenhoek, enclosing an extract of a letter from Oldenburg that asked Huygens to encourage L.’s nature study
April 11, 1674	Constantijn Huygens wrote Letter L-007 to Leeuwenhoek about sending his observations to son Christiaan in Paris
January 20, 1675	Christiaan Huygens wrote to Henry Oldenburg doubting Leeuwenhoek's observations of globules
February 12, 1675	Henry Oldenburg wrote to Christiaan Huygens about doubting Leeuwenhoek's globules
July 1, 1676	Visited by Christiaan Huygens during the summer; he saw the little animals in Leeuwenhoek's infusions
February 9, 1677	Christiaan Huygens wrote Letter L-050 of 1677-02-09 to Leeuwenhoek that his observations of little animals in spice infusions were well received in France
October 1, 1677	Denis de Dodart wrote to Christiaan Huygens about his admiration for Leeuwenhoek: "people of this merit should be pensioned as external academicians"
February 28, 1678	Christiaan Huygens began a series of observations of little animals replicating and expanding on Leeuwenhoek's
March 14, 1678	Christiaan Huygens observed little animals using dark-ground illumination
June 6, 1678	Christiaan Huygens wrote to Nehemiah Grew about seeing the sperm in human semen
September 17, 1678	Christiaan Huygens again observed little animals using dark-ground illumination
November 10, 1678	Christiaan Huygens's method of melting powdered glass to make a spherical lens
December 23, 1678	Constantijn Huygens wrote Letter L-076 to Leeuwenhoek about the identification of little animals observed in pepper-water by his son Christiaan as well as the latter’s description of the scales on the wings of butterflies
May 1, 1679	Visited by James, Duke of York, and "several high personages"
May 4, 1679	Constantijn Huygens wrote Letter L-082 to Leeuwenhoek that his son Christiaan’s new book Dioptrica is about to be published
May 4, 1679	mentor Constantijn Huygens, writing to his son Christiaan, called Leeuwenhoek the "bourgeois philosopher of Delft"
June 15, 1684	Visited Christiaan Huygens in Den Haag with the Durven brothers
July 27, 1684	Christiaan Huygens gossiped about Maria Duyst in a letter to his brother Constantijn Huygens
March 6, 1689	Christiaan Huygens wrote Letter L-205 to Leeuwenhoek, thanking him for the gift of a mangrove tree and inquires whether L.’s observations of the circulation of the blood could also be seen in the wings of bats, the legs of ducks, and the ears of rats
March 6, 1690	Christiaan Huygens wrote Letter L-208 to Leeuwenhoek about liquids in glass balls and Iceland crystal
March 2, 1691	Gottfried Leibniz wrote to Christiaan Huygens praising Leeuwenhoek, "who tells me what he observes"
July 22, 1692	Christiaan Huygens began second series of observations of little animals replicating and expanding on Leeuwenhoek's
October 20, 1692	Christiaan Huygens wrote Letter L-223 to Leeuwenhoek about the procreation of eels and spontaneous generation and praised his work and diligence
July 8, 1695	Christiaan Huygens died
March 4, 1699	Listed as a correspondent of Claude Burlet by the Académie des Sciences of Paris

Learn more

Related sources:

Year	Author	Title
1868	Harting, P.	Christiaan Huygens in zijn leven en werken geschetst
1888	Huygens, C.	Oeuvres complètes
1924	Velde, A.J.J. van de	Over eenige handschriften der brieven van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek.
1980	Bos, H. J. M. (ed.)	Studies on Christiaan Huygens
1989	Fournier, M.	Huygens' Designs for a Simple Microscope
2007	Fournier, M.	Personal styles in microscopy: Leeuwenhoek, Swammerdam and Huygens.
2008	Duuglas-Ittu, K. von	The Simple Microscope in the Hands of Van Leeuwenhoek and Huygens
2012	Zuidervaart, H.	The ‘invisible technician’ made visible
2013	various	Circulation of Knowledge and Learned Practices in the 17th-century Dutch Republic

Learn more about ...
Period 1 - 1673-1679
Period 2 - 1679-1686
What did Leeuwenhoek say about his own writing?
Who wrote letters to Leeuwenhoek?

Related letters:

What Leeuwenhoek wrote ...
Wrote Letter L-051 of 1677-02-15 to Christiaan Huygens to thank him for translating a letter into French
Wrote Letter L-077 of 1678-12-26 to Constantijn Huygens about how son Christiaan's observations of little animals correspond to his own
Wrote Letter L-084 of 1679-05-15 to Christiaan Huygens to explain more about his observations of little animals
Wrote Letter L-207 of October 1689 to Christiaan Huygens about sending books to his brother Constantijn Huygens in London

Related people:

Gottfried Leibniz

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in the 1600's

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in the 1600's

Christiaan Huygens

Life in Holland

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