I was born in 28 June 1577 in Siegen, Westphalia, to Jan Rubens and Maria Pypelincks. My father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the legal advisor (and lover) to Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange, and settled at her court in Siegen in 1570. In 1589, two years after my father's death, I moved with his mother to Antwerp, where I was raised as a Chatolic. Religion figured prominently in much of my work and later I became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting.
In Antwerp, I received a humanist education, studying Latin and classical literature. By fourteen I began his artistic apprenticeship. Much of my earliest training involved copying earlier artists' works. I completed my education in 1598, at which time I entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master.
In 1600, I travelled to Italy and stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titan, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua. With financial support from the Duke, I travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601. There, I studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters.
I travelled to Spain on a diplomatic mission in 1603 and returned to Italy in 1604.
Upon hearing of my mother's illness in 1608, I planned my departure from Italy for Antwerp. However, she died before I made it home.
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