David van Goorle

[4] Although he called himself Ultrajectinus (after his birthplace Utrecht),[5] he grew up with his maternal grandparents in their stins in the Frisian village of Cornjum.

[6] From April 1611, he studied theology at the University of Leiden; he also expressed his views on atoms[7] in his book Idea Physicae, where he disputes the theories of Aristotle and claims that there is something as a "smallest, undividable, particle".

For the early seventeenth century these were revolutionary thoughts, and Van Goorle is regarded as one of the founders of the particle-atom theory, together with Daniel Sennert and Pierre Gassendi, to name just a few.

He died at the early age of 21; on his tombstone in the church of Cornjum he is remembered as an "erudite and very intelligent young man."

[8] Mersenne mentions Giordano Bruno (and his English disciple Nicholas Hill), Tommaso Campanella and Jean Bodin in the same list.