About the author
I studied Dutch literature from the Middle Ages at the University of Amsterdam. Between 1985 and 1990 I explored the literary activities of the Antwerp printer-publisher Jan van Doesborch which I published in – next to some Dutch and English articles – my PhD Tussen tekst en publiek (Franssen 1990). After my Ph.D. I worked in Berlin at the Free University as a Professor on Dutch literature & society before 1800. At Hogeschool Holland I was a teacher in Medieval Dutch Literature between 1991 and 1998. After that I entered the field of Communication. Since 2006 I work as a manager for Inholland University of Applied Sciences.
After my Ph.D. I had less time to deal with Van Doesborch and his work. In the past twenty years I therefore focused only on one of his texts: the jestbook Virgilius. Van zijn leven ende doot [Virgilius. Of his life and death] resulting finally in a new annotated Dutch edition (De tovenaar Vergilius 2010) and three contributions to the The Virgil Encyclopedia (Thomas, Ziolkowski eds. 2013).
Piet Franssen
About this website
The idea behind this website is to write a ‘book’. The content of the book depends on your participation. I have made a scheme of the possible content of the book and I will continue to write the paragraphs since most of them are still empty (especially chapters 3-5), or in Dutch.
Reading the book is quite simple. Just click on the book and then on the content overview in the left top wing. There you can scroll to the paragraph you want to read.
Also if you want to help me in translating texts into English or correct my English please feel free to e-mail me on janvandoesborch@xs4all.nl. Please continue with the paragraph ‘Jan van Doesborch revisited’.