Anna Maria van Schurman was born in Cologne, Germany, to a devout Reformed family that would later settle in the Dutch Republic.
Anna Maria van Schurman was born on 5 November 1607 in Cologne, in the Holy Roman Empire, into a family of Dutch and German Reformed Protestant background that had fled religious persecution in the Southern Netherlands. Her father, Frederik van Schurman, was a learned man who believed strongly in education, including for his daughters, which was highly unusual for the era.
From early childhood, Anna Maria displayed extraordinary intellectual gifts. She reportedly could read fluently by age three and showed talent in drawing, music, needlework, and languages before the age of ten. Her father personally tutored her in Latin, logic, and other subjects typically reserved for boys, laying the foundation for what would become one of the most remarkable intellectual careers of the seventeenth century.
The family later relocated to Utrecht in the Dutch Republic, where Anna Maria would spend much of her formative and adult life. Her birth in Cologne and subsequent upbringing in a Reformed émigré household of considerable learning positioned her uniquely to become a central figure in European scholarly and religious life, eventually being called the 'Star of Utrecht' and one of the most educated women in Europe.