Cornelis Pieterszoon Hooft

In Amsterdam, the name Hooft usually brings to mind the luxury shopping street P.C. Hooftstraat or the poet Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft. His father, Cornelis Pieterszoon Hooft (1547-1626), was at least as well known in his own day. A merchant, he joined the city council in 1584 and served as burgomaster twelve times between 1588 and 1610, four of them as first burgomaster.

Four mayors at once

Hooft belonged to the new generation of rulers who took over after the Alteratie, the "Alteration" of 26 May 1578. On that day the Catholic city government was removed without bloodshed: its members were marched to the Damrak and shipped out of town, and Protestant regents took charge. Amsterdam then had not one mayor but four at the same time. Every year, around 1 February, new ones were chosen by a small circle of regents from their own ranks. After a year in office a burgomaster usually had to sit out a year before he could be chosen again. The pool of candidates was the vroedschap, a council of 36 men who sat for life and picked their own new members. That is how the same families ran the city for two centuries.

A clear conscience

Hooft was known for going his own way. He opposed plans to make the Prince of Orange count of Holland. In 1616 he warned against the agitation of the strict Calvinists known as Counter-Remonstrants, and he did so again in 1618 when Prince Maurice visited Amsterdam. It was a risky position: Maurice and the strict Calvinists won that struggle.

The poet Vondel admired him deeply, praising his solid integrity in the satirical poem Roskam and writing a poem on his death. Hooft also left a large body of memoranda and opinions, published in 1871 and 1925, which still show historians how a regent around 1600 thought.

The Rijksmuseum holds a portrait of him by Cornelis van der Voort dated 1622: a seated man of 76, dressed in black. He died four years later.