LAET, Joannes de (Latin: Ioannes Latius). 1581 (not 1593) — buried 15.12.1649. Flemish Geographer, Philologist and Naturalist, who wrote from secondary sources a well known book on India. Son of a cloth merchant, Hans de Laet, who as a protestant fled to north, when the Spanish took the town. Educated in Amsterdam, then student of Erpenius and Scaliger at Leiden. In 1603-07 in London. Worked as merchant, in 1620 one of the founders of the Dutch West India Company and then one of its directors until his death. Married Jacobmijntje van Loor and after her early death Maria Boudewijns van Berlicum, at least one daughter.
Publications: De imperio Magni Mogulis sive India Vera. Lugd. Bat. 1631; translated by J. S. Hoyland: The empire of the Great Mogol. 252 p. Bombay 1928.
– De Turcici imperii status. Ld. 1630, Persia, seu regni Persici status. L. B. 1633, and similar works, also on America; edited Latin classical texts (Elder Pliny, Vitruvius).
Sources: Wikipedia with further references.
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