, a Flemish geometrician, was born at Bruges in 1584, and became
, a Flemish geometrician, was born at Bruges in 1584, and became a Jesuit at Rome at twenty years of age. He studied mathematics under the learned Jesuit Clavius. He afterward became a reputable professor of those sciences himself, and his instructions were solicited by several princes he was called to Prague by the emperor Ferdinand II. and Philip IV. king of Spain was desirous of having him to teach the mathematics to his ion, the young prince John of Austria. He was not less estimable for his virtues than his skill in the sciences. His well-meant endeavours were very commendable, when his holy zeal, though for a false religion, led him to follow the army in Flanders one compaign, to confess the wounded and dying soldiers, in which he received several wounds himself. He died of an apoplexy at Ghent, in 1667, at eighty-three years of age.