Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, often abbreviated to P.C. Hooft (pronounced[ˈpeːˈseːˈɦoːft]), was born in Amsterdam as scion of the patrician Hooft family and son of burgomaster (mayor) Cornelis Hooft. He was also uncle to statesmen and burgomasters Cornelis and Andries de Graeff.
In 1598, in preparation for his career as a merchant, his father sent him to France and Italy, but Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft was more interested in art and was deeply impressed by the Italian Renaissance.[1]
Hooft was a prolific writer of plays, poems and letters, but from 1618 onwards he concentrated on writing a history of the Netherlands (Nederduytsche Historiën), inspired by Roman historian Tacitus. His focus was primarily on the Eighty Years' War between the Netherlands and Spain and though he tried to be as impartial as possible, he did succeed.
As a poet, he was influenced by his Renaissance contemporaries in France and Italy.
In present-day Amsterdam, Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft gives his name to P.C. Hooftstraat, the city's main destination for expensive designer clothes shopping. The south-western end of P. C. Hooftstraat runs into the city's main park, the Vondelpark, named for his friend Joost van den Vondel (see Life above). In many other Dutch cities, there are other streets named after Hooft, many of them also called P. C. Hooftstraat or Pieter C. Hooftstraat.
In 1947, 300 years after P.C. Hooft died in The Hague, a literary prize in his name was instituted by the Dutch government. An independent foundation annually awards the prize. Initially it was awarded for specific works, but in recent years it is awarded based on the entire collection of a writer.
