Spinoza's World

Period Maps

Paintings by Bruegel, Rembrandt, and Vermeer

Amsterdam, Spinoza's Birthplace

Spinoza's Horoscope

Portraits of Spinoza

Scenes of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, where Spinoza Studied as a Boy and Young Man

The Synagogue's Court of Judgment which Excommunicated Spinoza for his Radical Ideas

Spinoza's House in Rijnsburg, where He Moved after His Excommunication

Interior of the House

Spinoza's Workshop (He Made His Living as a Lens Grinder)

Meeting in the 17th Century of the States General of the United Provinces (Later called Holland or the Netherlands)

Building where the States General Met

Spinoza's Friend, Johan De Witt, Chief Pensionary (i.e. President) of the States General, and His Brother Cornelius (in the Background)

Political Murder of the De Witt Brothers by a Fundamentalist Calvinist Mob

The De Witt Brothers Immortalized

Images of the Hague, where Spinoza Moved after the De Witt Brothers Were Murdered

Spinoza's House in the Hague

Books by Spinoza (Only the First Two Were Published During Spinoza's Life-Time, the Second One - The Tractatus - Anonymously)

Rene Descartes, Founder of Modern Philosophy and a Great Influence on Spinoza

Letter from Spinoza to the German Philosopher, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Giordano Bruno, Philosopher and Advocate of Copernican Astronomy
Found Guilty of Heresy by the Catholic Inquisition and Burned at the Stake

Galileo, Founder of Modern Mathematical Physics and Advocate of Copernican Astronomy
Found Guilty of Heresy by the Inquisition, and Kept under House Arrest after He Recanted

Euclid's Elements of Geometry, Model for the Rational Method of Spinoza's Ethics

Working Through the Night

Spinoza's Tombstone