Duytsche Mathematique and the Building of a New Society: Pursuits of Mathematics in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic

In the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic mathematicians and mathematics acquired notable social and intellectual prestige. They contributed to the establishment of a new state, first through practical projects of fortification, navigation, land management, and later also through learned pursuits in academia and cultural circles. It can be said that the Republic provided particularly fertile grounds for academic pursuits, through its make-up of distributed wealth and power and its economic characteristics.
The various towns and provinces provided various settings and opportunities to aspiring mathematicians. This chapter compares two notable sites, the provinces of Holland and Friesland, whose parallels and particularities put into perspective the interactions between mathematics and society in the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic.