Hippoliet Van Peene

Hippoliet Jan Van Peene was a Belgian medical doctor and playwright, born in Kaprijke in 1811 and died in Ghent in 1864. He studied medicine at the State University of Leuven and practiced as a physician first in Kaprijke and later in Ghent. Outside medicine he is remembered as the first modern Flemish playwright, with thirty-five theatre plays performed in his time by the Ghent society Broedermin en Taelyver, among them the comedy Keizer Karel en de Berchemsche Boer, the historical drama Jacob van Artevelde and Brigitta of de Twee Vondelingen, which was staged at the opening of the Minard Theatre in 1847. In that same year he wrote the lyrics of the Flemish anthem De Vlaamse Leeuw, set to music by Karel Miry. His record belongs to the Atlas as a working nineteenth century physician whose lasting fame came from the stage and the song.