Habsburg

Habsburg

The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

s, Rudolf Snel grew up in the Utrecht

Utrecht (province)

Utrecht is the smallest province of the Netherlands in terms of area, and is located in the centre of the country. It is bordered by the Eemmeer in the north, Gelderland in the east, the river Rhine in the south, South Holland in the west, and North Holland in the northwest...

 city of Oudewater

Oudewater

Oudewater is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht.-Population centres :The municipality of Oudewater consists of the following cities, towns, villages and/or districts: Hekendorp, Oudewater, Papekop, Snelrewaard....

. At maturity he left to study at the University of Cologne

University of Cologne

The University of Cologne is one of the oldest universities in Europe and, with over 44,000 students, one of the largest universities in Germany. The university is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, an association of Germany's leading research universities...

 under Valentin Naboth

Valentin Naboth

Valentin Naboth , known by the latinized name Valentinus Naiboda, was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer.- Life and academic career :...

 and at the University of Heidelberg under Immanuel Tremellius

Immanuel Tremellius

Immanuel Tremellius was an Italian Jewish convert to Christianity. He was known as a leading Hebraist and Bible translator.- Life :He was born at Ferrara, and educated at the University of Padua...

 and soon received a teaching position at the University of Marburg. Though trained in Aristotelian

Aristotelianism

Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. The works of Aristotle were initially defended by the members of the Peripatetic school, and, later on, by the Neoplatonists, who produced many commentaries on Aristotle's writings...

 logic, he had become impressed with the new logic of Petrus Ramus

Petrus Ramus

Petrus Ramus was an influential French humanist, logician, and educational reformer. A Protestant convert, he was killed during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.-Early life:...

, which he taught along with mathematics and languages at his university posts.

In 1578, he returned to Oudewater soon after its devastation in a Spanish siege during the Dutch Revolt

Dutch Revolt

The Dutch Revolt or the Revolt of the Netherlands This article adopts 1568 as the starting date of the war, as this was the year of the first battles between armies. However, since there is a long period of Protestant vs...

. It was not long before he was offered, and accepted, a position as professor of Hebrew and mathematics at the University of Leiden. That summer he married Machteld Cornelisdochter, who had survived the Oudewater massacre. She accompanied him to Leiden, where he taught until his death in 1613. Snellius was buried in the Grote kerk in his hometown Oudewater.

Influence

While visiting Utrecht

Utrecht

Utrecht is a city in the Netherlands.The name may also refer to:* Utrecht , of which Utrecht is the capital* Utrecht , including the city of Utrecht* Bishopric of Utrecht* Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Utrecht...

 in 1575, he befriended the young Jacobus Arminius

Jacobus Arminius

Jacobus Arminius , the Latinized name of the Dutch theologian Jakob Hermanszoon from the Protestant Reformation period, served from 1603 as professor in theology at the University of Leiden...

, then an impoverished student in Oudewater who would accompany him back to Marburg to take up his studies. Arminius, too, would return to Leiden to teach, and his theological doctrines would have an effect on the Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

 in Holland and beyond. Another student of Snellius, this time at Leiden, was the child prodigy Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law...

, who would not only become involved in the political battles surrounding Arminius, but would later establish himself as a founding political theorist of the early modern age. His son Willebrord Snellius

Willebrord Snellius

Willebrord Snellius was a Dutch astronomer and mathematician. In the west, especially the English speaking countries, his name has been attached to the law of refraction of light for several centuries, but it is now known that this law was first discovered by Ibn Sahl in 984...

 was the astronomer and mathematician who gave his name to Snell's law

Snell's law

In optics and physics, Snell's law is a formula used to describe the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction, when referring to light or other waves passing through a boundary between two different isotropic media, such as water and glass...

.