- First name
- Christoph Joachim Nicolai
- Last name
- Greiffencrantz, von
- Date of Birth
- 1649
- Date of Death
- 1715
- Born in
- Schwerin
- Died in
- Zweibrücken
Christoph Joachim Nicolai von Greiffencrantz represented (1693–9) the Duchy of Holstein in Essen (East Frisia, north west Germany). Von Greiffencrantz sojourned as an envoy in The Hague and Vienna and corresponded extensively with Leibniz (from 1697 onwards, 266 letters). After Von Greiffencrantz’s death, his son negotiated with Leibniz about the sale of his father’s manuscripts (cf. Müller and Krönert, 1969, p. 253).
Sebastian Kortholt wrote about Spinoza’s self-chosen isolation in 1672 the following:
The accuracy of this is confirmed in what the adviser to his serene highness the Duke of Holstein, mr. Christoph Nicolai of Greiffencrantz, someone who kept Spinoza company in The Hague in 1672, told about him [Spinoza] in his letter to my father, sent from Holm in Sweden to him on 6 April 1681. ‘He appeared to live all to himself’, he said, ‘always lonely and if buried in his study’.
Quoted in Walther and Czelinski, vol. 1, pp. 74–6.