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Why did Peter Paul Rubensâs family leave the Spanish Netherlands for Germany?
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Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens, self-portrait in oil, c. 1638; in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Peter Paul Rubensâs father, Jan Rubens, fled the Spanish Netherlands with his wife and children in 1568 to escape religious persecution for his Calvinist beliefs. The family settled in the German town of Siegen, where Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577. Following his father's death in 1587, the family returned to Antwerp.1