Aldert Hodenpijl

Patronymic: 
Jacobs
Antony's: 
witness and guildhouse manager
Death or Burial date: 
June 29, 1681

Hodenpijl inherited property on the Geerweg from his mother. By 1658, he was the manager of the Comanscolf on the Oude Langendijk. The house was used as the guild house for the St. Nikolaas Gilde, of which Leeuwenhoek was a member from the 1650s through the mid-1690s. The Comanscolf was also used as a restaurant or hotel at other times.

Hodenpijl lived there since at least 1658, because his wife Judith reported that as her address when she was admitted into the Hervormde Gemeente Delft in May of 1658. She lived until at least 1691, her last appearance in the public records as a witness at her grandson Henrick's baptism.

In 1677, Hodenpijl was one of the eight men who wrote to the Royal Society testifying to what he saw through Leeuwenhoek's lenses. The biographical note in Alle de Brieven / Collected Letters volume 2 suggests that perhaps Leeuwenhoek used the Comanscoff for his demonstrations, and Hodenpijl would have witnessed them that way.

Hodenpijl was buried out of the Comanscolf on June 29, 1681 (DTB inv 43, fol 93). Later, it was owned by his son Crijn.