Catholic University of Leuven

The Catholic University of Leuven is the largest and most prominent university in Belgium. It was founded in 1425 by Pope Martin V, which makes it the oldest Catholic university still active. The university split in 1968 to form two universities:

• Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, Dutch-speaking, which is situated in Leuven, except for
  • KULAK, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Afdeling Kortrijk, its branch campus in Kortrijk
• Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, French-speaking

History

In the 15^th century the city of Louvain, with the support of John IV, Duke of Brabant, made a formal request for a university. With a papal bull signed by Pope Martin V on 9 December 1425, Louvain University was founded as a Studium Generale. As such it is the oldest Catholic university in the world still in existence today. In its early days this university was modelled after the universities of Paris, Cologne and Vienna. The university flourished in the 16^th century due to the presence of famous scientists and professors, such as Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens (Pope Adrian VI), Desiderius Erasmus, Joan Lluís Vives, Andreas Vesalius and Gerardus Mercator.

In 1797 however the old university was closed under the reign of the French Republic, as the region was annexed to France during the French Revolutionary Wars. When the region was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815-1830), William I of the Netherlands founded a new university in 1816 in Leuven as a Rijksuniversiteit (E: State university). Belgium became independent in 1830, and the Belgian bishops founded a new Roman catholic university in 1834, at Mechelen, but already in 1835, the catholic university returned to Louvain, where the Rijksuniversiteit had been closed.

The next milestone came in 1968 when the bilingual Catholic University of Louvain was split into two universities, which became independent institutions in 1970. The split was caused by repeated protests from Flemish organisations and student population on claims of discrimination (Leuven Vlaams action, E: Leuven Flemish). The Dutch-speaking Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven), remained in Leuven (Flanders, north part of Belgium), and Pieter De Somer became the first rector of the new university. The French-speaking Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), moved to Louvain-la-Neuve at Ottignies (Wallonia, south part of Belgium). Now there is about a thirty minute drive between the two universities.

Library

The University Library

The first library was located in the university halls, and was enlarged in 1725 in baroque style. In 1914, during World War I, Louvain was plundered by German troops, and a large part of the city was put to fire, effectively destroying about half of the city. The library was lost, as well as about 300,000 books, and a huge collection of manuscripts collected since the university's founding in 1425.

The new main library was built between 1921 and 1928 and designed by the American architect Whitney Warren in low countries neorenaissance style. Its monumentality is a reflection of the victory against Prussian Germany. It is one of the largest university buildings in the city. However, in 1940, ironically, during the German armed forces invasion of Louvain, the building largely burnt down, including its (at that time) 900,000 manuscripts and books.

Notable alumni

• Jan Standonck (1454 - 1504) - priest and reformer, Master of the Collège de Montaigu in Paris.
• Adriaan Floriszoon Boeyens (1459 - 1523), later Pope Adrian VI.
• Desiderius Erasmus (1466 - 1536), humanist.
• Gerard Mercator (1512 - 1594), cartographer.
• Andreas Vesalius (1514 - 1564), father of modern anatomy.
• Rembert Dodoens (1517 - 1585), botanist.
• Justus Lipsius (1547 - 1606), humanist.
• Cornelius Otto Jansen (1585 - 1638), father of the Jansenist movement.
• Charles Nerinckx (1761 - 1824), founder of Sisters of Loretto.
• Hippoliet Van Peene (1811 - 1864), physician and playwright, wrote the lyrics of the Flemish anthem De Vlaamse Leeuw
• Antanas Baranauskas (1835 - 1902), Polish-Lithuanian poet
• Albrecht Rodenbach (1856 - 1880), poet
• Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin (1866 - 1962), mathematician who proved the prime number theorem
• Weng Wenhao (1889 - 1971), founder of modern Chinese geography
• Georges Lemaître (1894 - 1966), astronomer and proposer of the Big Bang theory.
• Victor Delhez (1902 – 1985), engraver and artist
• Léon Degrelle, (1906 - 1994), founder of Rexism, World War II collaborator.
• Herman Van Breda (1911 - 1974), founder of the Husserl Archives
• Otto von Habsburg (1912 - ), the current head of the Habsburg family.
• Christian de Duve (1917 - ), Nobel Prize in Medicine 1974, for his discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell
• Aster Berkhof, (1920 - ), Flemish writer
• Malachi Martin (1921 - 1999), Irish writer
• Geza Vermes (1924 - ), religious historian and translator into English of the Dead Sea Scrolls
• Gustavo Gutierrez (1928 - ), Peruvian Dominican theologian, founder of Liberation Theology.
• Camilo Torres Restrepo (1929 - 1966), Colombian priest and guerillero.
• Abdul Qadeer Khan (1935 - ), founder of Pakistan's nuclear programme
• Nguza Karl-i-Bond (1938 - 2003), notable Zairian politician^[1]
• Afif Safieh, Palestinian diplomat
• Tang Yuhan, cancerologist
• Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia, (1900 - 1970), physician and president of Costa Rica from 1940 to 1944. Established the Social Guarantees and universal health system still in use in Costa Rica.

Notes

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