Dominicus Lampsonius (Latinised form of Dominique Lampsone) (1532, in Bruges – 1599, in Liège) was a Flemish humanist, poet and painter. A secretary to various Prince-Bishops of Liège, he maintained an extensive correspondence with humanists and artists at home and abroad. His writings on Netherlandish artists formed an important contribution to the formation of the so-called Netherlandish canon.

Lampsonius studied arts and sciences at the University of Leuven. In 1554, he went to England to serve as secretary to Reginald Pole, a prominent humanist and Roman Catholic Cardinal. After Pole's death in 1558, he traveled to Liège where he was secretary to the successive Prince-Bishops (Robert of Berghes, Gerard of Grœsbeek, and Ernest of Bavaria). He thus regularly collaborated with Laevinus Torrentius who was the vicar of the Prince-Bishops until 1586 after which he became Bishop of Antwerp.

Lampsonius was for a while the teacher of Otto van Veen, a painter and humanist who would later be one of the masters of Peter Paul Rubens. He became friends and engaged in intensive correspondence with some of the leading humanists of his time such as Justus Lipsius, Janus Dousa, Johannes Livineius and Petrus Oranus.

He provided the Italian historian Lodovico Guicciardini, then a resident of Flanders, with information for his history of the Low Countries entitled Descrittione di Lodovico Guicciardini patritio fiorentino di tutti i Paesi Bassi altrimenti detti Germania inferiore (1567; The Description of the Low Countreys). He was a correspondent of the Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari, who relied upon him for his notes about the life and works of the Liège painter Lambert Lombard. In one of his letters to Vasari, Lampsonius defended Netherlandish art against some of the disparaging remarks that Vasari had made in his Vite. In a letter written to Vasari before the publication of the second edition of the Vite Lampsonius deplored the poor quality of recent prints of Italian art works, which, according to him, did not fully convey the excellence of the originals. Lampsonius suggested that Northern engravers should collaborate with Italian artists to improve this. He also asked Vasari to include in the revised edition of the Vite treatises on the three arts of sculpture, painting and architecture, with drawings and information about the secrets of the arts.

He further conducted a regular correspondence with Giulio Clovio to whom he proposed a project to engrave Michelangelo's works in a skilful manner so that those who had not visited Rome could appreciate what they looked like.

Dominicus Lampsonius maintained a regular correspondence with Giorgio Vasari. The content of two letters is known. The first, dated 30 October 1564, was partly incorporated into Vasari’s Vite. In this passage Vasari praised Lampsonius as "a well-learned and knowledgeable man," formerly a close confidant of Cardinal Reginald Pole, and at that time serving as secretary to the Prince-Bishop of Liège.

The second letter, dated 25 April 1565, has been preserved in full. At the end of this letter Lampsonius responded to Vasari’s question whether more Netherlandish painters should be included in the Vite by noting that he had already supplied the relevant names and details in earlier letters. These earlier lists are not extant, but the names are reflected in the chapter “Di diversi Fiamminghi” in the 1568 edition of the Vite.

This information from Lampsonius was about four years more recent than the data provided by Lodovico Guicciardini in his Descrittione (1567). It is noteworthy that in the revised 1568 Vite Bruegel is mentioned a second time as “Pietro Broghel d’Anversa,” and the earlier designation “Pietro Brueghel di Breda” no longer appears.