The Allegory of Faith

Vermeer's mother is buried in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, February 13.

Geertruijt Reynier Vermeer, Vermeer's sister, is buried at the beginning of May in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft.

Vermeer inherits Mechelen from his mother, July 13. He rents it to a shoemaker caller Van Ackerdyck.

Vermeer is appointed for a second time headmen of the Saint Luke's Guild. He continues to paint in an "abstract" mode paying greater attention to pattern and the compositional structure of his works. Scholars have asserted that Vermeer may have been following the popular French mode of painting.

Delft pop. 15,000
The Hague pop. 6,000
Amsterdam pop. 219,000

Louis Le Vau, Fr. architect, d. (b. 1612)

Landscape architect André Lenôtre lays out the Champs-Elysées at Paris.

Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme includes a ballet with music by court composer Jean Baptiste Lully, 38, who has come to France from his native Florence and changed his name from Giovanni Battista Lulli. The ballet is so popular that four performances are requested in the space of 8 days.

Feb 10, William Congreve, English writer (Old Bachelor, Way of the World), is born.

John Ray prints a book of aphorisms such as: "Blood is thicker than water..." and "Haste makes waste."

Italian scientist Giovanni Borelli attempts to use artificial wings to flying.

London clockmaker William Clement improves the accuracy of clocks by inventing anchor-shaped gadgets (escapements) that control the escape of a clock's driving force.

Parts of Baruch de Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus are published anonymously. Spinoza shows that the Bible, if properly understood, gives no support to the intolerance of religious authorities and their interference in civil and political affairs. The book creates a furor. It will provoke widespread denunciations as it goes through five editions in the next 5 years, and Spinoza moves to The Hague to gain the protection of influential friends. Now 37, he suffers from tuberculosis after years of inhaling glass dust produced by his lens-making.

Cardinal Emilio Altieri becomes Pope Clement X.

May 2, The Hudson Bay Co. is chartered by England's King Charles II to exploit the resources of the Hudson Bay area.

Oct 13, Virginia passes a law that blacks arriving in the colonies as Christians cannot be used as slaves.

The Dutch merchant marine has become larger than that of England, France, Spain and Portugal combined.

Minute hands first appear on watches.

Cafe Procope, the first cafe in Paris, begins serving ice cream.

France's Louis XIV founds Les Invalides at Paris to house up to 7,000 disabled soldiers.

Lionel Bruant: Hôtel des Invalides, Paris.

Christopher Wren: The Monument to commemorate the Great Fire of London in 1666

Feb 19, Charles-Hubert Gervais, composer, is born.

Dec 1, Francesco Stradivari, Italian violin maker and son of Antonius, is born.

Paris Opera opens with Robert Cambert's opera Pomone.

The French Académie de Royale Musique opens March 3 in the Salle du Jeu de Paume de la Bouteille. Jean Baptiste Lully will take over the Paris Opéra beginning next year and run it until 1687, rebuilding the house after fires that will destroy it in 1678 and 1681

Apr 6, Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, French playwright, poet (Sacred Odes & Songs), is born.

Molière writes his farce Les Fourberies de Scapin (The Wiles of Scapin or Scapin the Cheat).

In Germany Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz devised a mechanical calculator to add, subtract, multiply and divide.

Astronomer Jean Picard visits the observatory of the late Tycho Brache on Hven Island, Sweden, to determine its exact location in order that observations there can be compared with precision to those made elsewhere. He returns to Paris with copies of Brahe's work and will use them to help him obtain an accurate measurement of the length of a degree of a meridian (longitude line) for use in computing the size of the Earth.

Vermeer leases Mechelen to an apothecary for six years.

In May, Vermeer travels with two other headmen of the Saint Luke guild of Delft to The Hague in order to appraise a collection of disputed Italian paintings. Since one of the members of the expedition, Johannes Jordaens had spent many yeas in Italy, and Vermeer probably never left the Netherlands, it is likely that he was chosen for his importance as the headmaster of the guild. They testify before a notary that the works are "great pieces of rubbish and bad paintings."

Vermeer's earnings from his paintings after the French invaded the Netherlands of this year was probably considerably lower that those of the 1660s. His family was also very large by Dutch standards where only two or three children were expected. His economic problems may have been worsened because of low rate of production and restricted clientele and consequentially high prices of his paintings.

The refined sense of balance in Vermeer's compositions of the 1660s have given way to a new dynamic direction in the early 1670s. In The Guitar Player, Vermeer rejected balance in favor of a highly asymmetric compositions. The figure of the young girl seems to literally burst off the canvas. The music of the guitar, much bolder than that of the lute, had become popular in these years.

Apr 6, Andre Ardinal Destouches, composer, is born.

First public concert at Whitefriars, London, given by violinist John Banister.

The baroque guitar begins to become popular in Holland. A fine example can be seen in Vermeer's The Guitar Player. The lute, by this time, had begun to take on associations with an idealized past.

The Académie Royale de Danse is founded by Louis XIV in 1661 and amalgamated with the Paris Opéra becoming the Paris Opéra Ballet.

Apr 29, King Louis XIV of France invaded the Netherlands. The beginning of economic decline in the Dutch Republic and the art market collapses

Jun 9, Peter I (d.1725), "The Great," was born. He grew to be almost 7 feet tall and was the Russian Czar from 1682 to 1725 and modernized Russia with sweeping reforms. He moves the Russian capital to the new city he built, St. Petersburg.

Jun 15, The Sluices are opened in Holland to save Amsterdam from the French.

Jul 4, States of Holland declares "Eternal Edict" void.

The Royal African Co. is granted a charter to expand the slave trade and its stockholders included philosopher John Locke. The operation will supply English sugar colonies with 3,000 slaves annually.

Peter Stuyvesant dies on his farm in NY. In 1959 Henry H. Kessler and Eugene Rachlis authored Peter Stuyvesant and his New York. In 1970 Adele de Leeuw authors Peter Stuyvesant.

Political lynching of the statesman Johan and Cornelis de Witt by Orange supporters in the Hague

Netherlands's third war with England and starts an economic decline in Holland. The art market collapses.

The Dutch organize a system of relief for the poor, who had been provided for up to now by prosperous merchants. With Dutch trade declining and the country at war, the merchants can no longer afford to be so generous.

June 27, another child of Vermeer is buried in the family grave in the Oude Kerk.

Vermeer rents family inn Mechelen that he had rented to his namesake an apothecary, for six years at 180 guilders a year, which was 10 guilders less that what was obtained from the shoemaker.

July 21, Vermeer sells two bonds totaling 800 guilders, one of which, worth 500 guilders, is in the name of Magdalena Pieters, daughters of Pieter Claesz van Ruijven, from whom Vermeer had barrowed money in 1657.

Willem van de Velde paints Three Ships in a Gale.

Adriaen van Ostade paints The Violin Player.

Mar 28, Adam Pijnacker, Dutch landscape painter, etcher, is buried.

Salvator Rosa, Spanish painter, dies.

Christopher Wren is knighted.

Dec 28, Joan Blaeu, Dutch cartographer, who published Atlas Major, dies.

Leibniz conceives a calculator that uses Pascal's adding machine as its basis but that can also multiply and divide. He finally builds the device some 20 years later.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek has by this time developed simple, single-lens microscopes with magnification up to 275 times (a device with a biconvex lens he grinds himself) and begins to send the English Royal Society letters on his discoveries.

Willem III of Orange saves Amsterdam and the province of Holland from France's Louis XIV by opening the sluice gates and flooding the country, an operation directed by mathematician and Amsterdam burgomaster Johan van Waveren Hudde, now 45 (see Leyden, 1574). Willem is supported by Friedrich Wilhelm, elector of Brandenburg, who concludes a separate peace with Louis and retains most of his possessions in Clèves.

University of Innsbruck is founded.

Feb 20, The first recorded wine auction was held in London.

Dutch forces retake New York and Delaware

Pieter van Ruijven, prominent Delft citizen and Vermeer's principal patron, dies. Van Ruijven had purchased about 20 of Vermeer's works, almost half of his total artistic output.

Vermeer's name appears on the register of the Delft militia. He was described, third on the list, as a schutter or marksman of the first rotten or squadron of the third company or vendel. This was the Orange company whose members were recruited from the quarter of the city that contained Oude Langedijk,, where Vermeer and his family was living with his step-mother, Maria Thins. Leonaert Bramer, friend of the Vermeer family for many years and noted painter of Delft, was a member of the same company. The fact that Vermeer was accepted in the Delft militia testifies to his high social standings.

June, Maria, Vermeer's eldest daughter, and Catharina, now about 20, marries the son of a prosperous Delft silk merchant Johannes Gilliszoon Cramer, who followed his father's profession. The wedding was held in Schipluy, as Maria's parents' wedding had been, and presumably with Catholic sacraments.

Reynier Bolnes, Vermeer's father-in-law, dies. Vermeer travels to Gouda to settle the estate.

Delft tax register more than 200 houses worth more than 20,000 guilders. A carpenter or mason earned about 500 guilders a year.

Philippe de Champaigne, French painter, dies.

Jun 21, Sir Christopher Wren begins to rebuild St Paul's Cathedral in London, replacing the old building which had been destroyed by the Great Fire.

Feb 21, Johann Augustin Kobelius, composer, is born.

Lully: Alceste, opera Paris.

Jun 20, Nicholas Rowe, poet laureate of England, is born.

Nov 8, John Milton (65), English poet (Paradise Lost), dies. His work included Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. Milton lost one eye at 36 and the other when he was 44. In 1952 Prof. Sensabaugh authored In That Grand Whig, Milton, an examination of Milton's political tracts.

The Great Historical Dictionary, or Anthology of Sacred and Secular History (Le grand Dictionnaire historique ou Mélange curieux de l'histoire sacré et profane) published at Lyons had been compiled by clergyman Louis Moréri, 31. It focuses on biographical and historical article, and will be translated into German, Italian, and Spanish as well as English, and it will appear in 20 editions by 1759

Louis Moreri: Le Grand Dictionnaire historique, first encyclopedic reference work on history.

Mar 4, John Flamsteed is appointed first Astronomer Royal of England.

Newton delivers his Discourse on Light and Colour to the Royal Society.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek of Delft discovers "invisible" small animals using the first of more than 400 simple microscopes that he will produce. Chamberlain since 1660 to the city's sheriff, Leeuwenhoek has sufficient income to devote considerable time and attention to his avocation of grinding lenses and using them to study tiny objects which he has isolated from ponds, rainwater, well water, and other sources

Feb 9, English reconqueres the city of New York from Netherlands.

Feb 19, Netherlands and England sign the Peace of Westminster. New York becomes English.

May 20, John Sobieski becomes Poland's first King.

The Treaty of Westminster February 9 ends the two-year war between England and the Netherlands. It returns New York and Delaware to England, freeing the English to expand their trade and grow prosperous while Europe becomes embroiled in depleting warfare.

England's Charles II begins to wear long waistcoats, introducing a fashion that encourages men to wear their watches in their waistcoat pockets instead of from their necks.