Correspondence of Johan de Witt (1625-1672)

Johan de Witt wrote and received many letters as a pensionery. His correspondence is very versatile and includes letters from important statesmen, foreign ministers, army commanders, scientists, artists, family members and numerous requests for a recommendation. The vast majority of the letters were written in the period 1653-1672, while a smaller part dates from before 1653. After his death, his personal archive was transferred to the state and is now kept in the National Archive: inventory Pensionary De Witt, 3.01.17.

To make De Witt’s letters accessible, Huygens ING has collaborated with the Nationaal Archief and Early Modern Letters Online – EMLO – a project by Cultures of Knowledge, part of Oxford University and the Bodleian Library. A team of volunteers, guest researchers and trainees will provide access to the letters on data such as sender, recipient, date, place of dispatch and receipt, language and archive data. Each letter also contains links to a digital image and to digitised editions. As of 14 March 2019, the first seven thousand (mostly diplomatic) letters have been made available online. The collection Johan de Witt en Engeland. Een bloemlezing uit zijn correspondentie is also available.