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Caspar Commelijn

Dutch botanist

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ1047867
Source-derived summary

Caspar Commelijn or Caspar Commelin (14 October 1668 Amsterdam – 25 December 1731 Amsterdam), was a Dutch botanist.

Life and work

He was the son of the bookseller, historian and publisher, Casparus Commelijn and his first wife, Margrieta Heydanus. His grandfather was Isaac Commelin. He enrolled on 12 September 1692 at Leiden as a student of medicine and graduated on 27 February 1694 with a dissertation De lumbricis ("About earthworms", Ludg. Bat. 1694). After graduation, he settled in his birthplace. When Peter Hotton departed for Leiden in 1696, Caspar was appointed to the post of botanist at the Hortus. He succeeded his uncle Jan Commelin, who together with Joan Huydecoper founded the Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam.

Caspar worked on books that were left uncompleted by the death of his uncle, Jan Commelin, and enjoyed the support of Nicolaes Witsen.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Caspar Commelijn” as dutch botanist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Caspar, Commelijn and Dutch.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1668, 1731, 1692, 1694—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1668, 1667, 1667-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Caspar, Commelijn and Dutch providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Caspar Commelijn”, the useful work is to connect “dutch botanist” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1047867. VIAF identifies the subject as 13241728. The Library of Congress control number is n84224663. 5 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1668, 1731, 1692 and 1694.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Caspar Commelijn primary sources, Caspar Commelijn archive and Caspar research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Caspar Commelijn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.