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From a fictional love letter of Aeneas addressed to his lover Dido, to a companionable poem to Christiaan Huygens: the elegies of Nicolaas Heinsius cover a wide range of fascinating material. This collection of poems was published when the author was only 26 years old and forms a good example of humanistic scholarly and poetical habits in the academic world of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Only three copies of this book of elegies survive today, one of which is located at the KNIR library. The copy at the KNIR has been bound together with Heinsius’ other set of Elegies, Italia, which was published two years later in Padua. By being bound together, this collection becomes something of a travel collection, which reflects humanistic ideals of writing poetry whilst being inspired by the remains of the classical world in the vicinity.

Nicolaas Heinsius

Nicolaas Heinsius was born in July 1620 in Leiden as the son of the famous philologist and poet Daniël Heinsius and his wife Ermgard Rutgers. He maintained a large social network among the contemporary intellectual elite of Europe and corresponded with them in Latin.(1) As was usual for elite, intellectual young men of this period, he travelled around France and Italy, from 1645 to 1648. It is in this period that his first book of elegies (Elegiarum Liber, 1646) and another book of elegies about Italy (Italia, 1648) were written and published.(2) 
Elegiac poetry is poetry written in elegiac couplets, each consisting of two verses of uneven length. While this meter was most often used for love poems, it can also be used for a wide range of other topics, such as elegiac letters to friends or poems concerning funeral or religious matters.(3) Moreover, Nicolaas Heinsius does not limit himself to one type of content and switches between fictional and real and between love and friendship. 
As befits a love poet, Nicolaas Heinsius’ personal life was covered in scandal. Especially when, after a lawsuit in 1657, he was forced to marry a woman from the court of queen Christina of Sweden with whom he had two children.(4) By publishing a book of elegies, Nicolaas Heinsius followed in the footsteps of his father, who had published a collection of 68 elegies in his twenties for his lover named Rossa.(5)

The Elegiarum Liber

In September 1645, Heinsius had departed to Paris, where he would remain until April 1646.(6) Although the primary reason for his stay abroad was to improve his health, he also used his time there as a bibliophile to gather precious manuscripts for his library, with special attention for those manuscripts that could be useful for making better editions of classical texts.(7) In this same period he also published his collection of elegies. The elegies were published by a Parisian publishing company run by the widow of Jean Camusat, Denise Deveuve, and her son in law Pierre le Petit. 
The collection contains eleven elegies, of which five have been addressed to, mainly Dutch, befriended intellectuals. One elegy is addressed to a certain Lisa, who might be a (fictional) lover. Nothing is known about this girl, but just as with his father’s lover Rossa we must be careful not to discard this girl as fictional just because nothing is known about her.(8) The elegies are followed by a series of varia poemata, mainly occasional poems addressed to friends again, ending with an eclogue and a nuptial poem for the marriage of Johannes Fredericus Gronovius and Adelheid Tennuilia. The front matter contains a dedication to Charles de Sainte-Maure, duke of Montausier.
It seems likely that the poem in the beginning, written by Christian Huygens, was added at a late stage in the publication process, since it was  added on a sheet together with the errata, before the start of the actual collection of poems. Additionally, it has been marked in a distinct way from the rest of the front matter in the collation, with a +.

The elegies must have been published in 1646, before Heinsius left Paris in April. The contents of the elegies have no direct link with France and the collection might contain material that Heinsius already wrote before his stay in Paris. During his stay in Italy, he wrote a new series of elegies that did have a strong connection to the country where he was staying at that time, called Italia, which he published in Padua in 1648. 

In the volume at the KNIR, these two collections of elegies have been bound together in a single volume. It is not possible to establish at which point the two collections have been bound together, but this must have happened at a later moment since they were published in different countries. At some points, the text of the Italia, has been slightly cut off (see picture below). This makes it plausible that that book was originally slightly bigger but has been cut to fit neatly together in a single volume with the Elegiarum Liber.
By binding the two books together in one volume, the meaning of the texts also changes somewhat. Together, they form the impression of a set of travel poetry written by a young intellectual on his grand tour. This is slightly misleading, however, since only the Italia has strong connections to the place where it is written, while the Elegiarum Liber contains a wide variety of topics. Also, the purposes for traveling to each of these countries were different, since Nicolaas came to France for his health, while the trip to Italy was more recreational.

 

Written by Lucas Faessen.

Description of the copy at the KNIR (9)

Nɪᴄᴏʟᴀᴀs Hᴇɪɴsɪᴜs
Nɪᴄᴏʟᴀɪ Hᴇɪɴsɪɪ, Dᴀɴ. F. Elegiarum liber. Accendunt varia diuersi argumenti Poëmata eodem Auctore. 
Parisiis, Apud viduam Ioannis Camusat et Petrum le Petit, via Iacobaea ad insigne aurei Velleris.
1646
92 ff. paper
Nineteenth century book cover    
4°: a2 e2 2 A4 C2-Z2
Koninklijk Instituut te Rome, Pregiatio G53
 
(1) Some of this correspondence has recently been published, see Bots, H. Correspondance de Jacques Dupuy et de Nicolas Heinsius (1646 – 1656). (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), Chapelain, J. Bray, B. (ed.) Les lettres authentiques a Nicolas Heinsius (1649 – 1672). (Paris: Honore Champion, 2005). Only his correspondence with Henrick Ploos van Amstel has appeared in translation. See: Ploos van Amstel, H. and Heinsius, N. 2007. Brieven 1635-1637 (Frank Tichelman vert.). (Woubruggen: Avalon pers, 2007). Beer, S. de. 2014. ‘Elegiac Poetry’ in Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Neo-Latin World vol. 2. (Kallendorf, G. ed.).
 

(2) Kan, A. H. ‘Heinsius (Nicolaus)’ in Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek. Deel 2 (Blok, P.J. and Molhuysen P.C. eds.)(Leiden: Sijthoff, 1912), pp. 558 - 559.Blok, F. F. 1949. Nicolaas Heinsius. In dienst van Christina van Zweden. Delft.
 

(3) See Beer, S. de. ‘Elegiac Poetry’ in Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Neo-Latin World vol. 2. (Kallendorf, G. ed.)(Leiden: Brill, 2014) for a detailed overview of the types of Neo-latin poetry written in elegiac couplets. 

 

(4) Kan 1912, p. 558. For an elaborate study of Heinsius’ period in Sweden, see Blok, F. F. Nicolaas Heinsius. In dienst van Christina van Zweden. (Delft:Ursulapers, 1949).
 

(5) Scholarship is divided whether Daniël Heinsius’ lover Rossa was a fictional creation or (based on) a real woman. See: Veenman, R. ‘Heinsius en Rossa: ware liefde? Over de liefdespoëzie van een Leidse humanist’ in Holland, historisch tijdschrift vol. 30.4/5, 1996: pp. 215-224.
 

(6) Bots 1971, pp. xxxvii - xl.
 

(7)  Blok 1949, p. 22.
 

(8) Cf. Veenman 1996, p. 215. who argues that this way of argumentation should not be used for Rossa, the lover of Nicolaas’ father Daniël.

(9) The current information about the contents in the catalogue of the KNIR is incorrect. Some of the information about the other collection of elegies, Italia, is added under the Elegiarum liber  and this information is missing in the entry for Italia.

​

References

Bots, H. 1971. Correspondance de Jacques Dupuy et de Nicolas Heinsius (1646 – 1656). The Hague.

Chapelain, J. Bray, B. (ed.) 2005. Les lettres authentiques à Nicolas Heinsius (1649 – 1672). Paris. 
Heinsius, N. 1648. Italia, elegiarum liber. ad illustrissimum virum Cassianum a Puteo. accedunt alia. Padua.

Kan, A. H. 1912 ‘Heinsius (Nicolaus)’ in Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek. Deel 2 (Blok, P.J. and Molhuysen P.C. eds.): 557-560.

Lefèvre, E. and Schäfer, E. (eds.). 2008. Daniel Heinsius. Klassischer Philologe und Poet. Tübingen.
Ploos van Amstel, H. and Heinsius, N. 2007. Brieven 1635-1637 (Frank Tichelman vert.). Woubruggen.

Veenman, R. 1996. ‘Heinsius en Rossa: ware liefde? Over de liefdespoëzie van een Leidse humanist’ in Holland, historisch tijdschrift vol. 30.4/5: 215-224.