历史

The Old University (1425–1797)

In the 15th century the city of Leuven, with the support of John IV, Duke of Brabant, made a formal request to the Holy See for a university. Pope Martin V issued a papal bull dated 9 December 1425 founding the University in Leuven as a Studium Generale. In its early years, the university was modelled on those of Paris, Cologne and Vienna. The university flourished in the 16th century due to the presence of famous scholars and professors, such as Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens (Pope Adrian VI), Desiderius Erasmus, Johannes Molanus, Joan Lluís Vives, Andreas Vesalius, Ferdinand Verbiest and Gerardus Mercator.

The State University (1816–1835)

After the French Revolutionary Wars, by the Treaty of Campo Formio, this region was ceded to the French Republic by Austria in exchange for the Republic of Venice. Once formally integrated into the French Republic, a law dating to 1793 mandating that all universities in France be closed came into effect. The University of Leuven was abolished by decree of the Departement of Dijle on October 25, 1797.

The region next became part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815–1830), and William I of the Netherlands founded a new university in 1816 in Leuven as a state university (Dutch: Rijksuniversiteit).

The Catholic University (1834–1968)

In 1830 Belgium became independent of the Netherlands. Belgian bishops founded a new Roman Catholic university in 1834, at Mechelen. In 1835 the recently founded Catholic University of Mechlin moved to Leuven, and changed its name to Catholic University of Leuven, where the State University had been closed. This is generally seen as a refounding of the old University of Leuven.

The split (1962–1970)

While the academic language of the "old" university had been 拉丁语, the refounded university provided lectures in both Latin and the vernacular French. By the end of the 19th century, in effect it was a French-language institution. Lectures in Dutch, the other official language of Belgium, began to be provided in 1930.

In 1962, in line with constitutional reforms governing official language use, the French and Dutch sections of the university became autonomous within a common governing structure. Flemish nationalists continued to demand a division of the university, and Dutch speakers expressed resentment at privileges given to French-speaking academic staff and the perceived disdain of the local French-speaking community for their Dutch-speaking neighbours. Leuven is within Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium.

Tensions rose when a French-speaking social geographer suggested in a televised lecture that an objective case could be made for changing the administrative status of the city of Leuven, to include it in a larger, bilingual 'Greater-Brussels'. Mainstream Flemish politicians and students began demonstrating under the slogan 'Leuven Vlaams - Walen Buiten' ('A Flemish Leuven - Walloons out'). Student demonstrations increased in violence throughout the mid-60s. Student unrest and questions of discrimination against ethnic Flemish brought down the Belgian government in February 1968.

The dispute was resolved in June 1968 by making the Dutch-language section an independent Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, which remained in Leuven. The French-speaking university, called the Université catholique de Louvain, was moved to a greenfield campus, Louvain-la-Neuve, 20 km southeast of Brussels where French is the official language. Acrimony about the split was long-lasting. At long last, research collaborations and student exchanges between the two "sister universities" take place with increasing frequency.

Library

The University Library

The first library was located inside the university halls, and was enlarged in 1725 in a baroque style. In 1914, during World War I, Leuven was looted by German troops. They set fire to a large part of the city, effectively destroying about half of it. The library was lost, as well as about 300,000 books; and a huge collection of manuscripts, such as the Easter Island tablet bearing Rongorongo text E. In the early stages of the war, Allied propaganda capitalized on the German destruction as a reflection on German Kultur.

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 Allied victory against Germany. It is one of the largest university buildings in the city. In 1940, during the second German invasion of Leuven, the building largely burnt down, including its (at that time) 900,000 manuscripts and books. Rebuilt after the war in accordance with Warren's design, it is now the Central Library of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The paintwork decorations of the original design were completed only in 2000, and marked the 575th anniversary of the university's foundation.

The split of the university into separate French-language and Dutch-language institutions in 1968 entailed a division of the central library holdings. This was done on the basis of alternate shelfmarks (except in cases where a work clearly belonged to one section or the other, e.g. was written by a member of faculty or bequeathed by an alumnus whose linguistic allegiance was clear). This gave rise to the factoid that encyclopedias and runs of periodicals were divided by volume between the two universities, but actually such series bear single shelfmarks.

Notable alumni

For post-1968 alumni, see Katholieke Universiteit Leuven or Université Catholique de Louvain.

• Jan Standonck (1454–1504), priest and reformer, Master of the Collège de Montaigu in Paris.
• Adriaan Floriszoon Boeyens (1459–1523), 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.
• Leonardus Lessius 1554–1623, ethics and economy
• Cornelius Otto Jansen (1585–1638), father of Jansenism.
• Charles Nerinckx (1761–1824), founder of Sisters of Loretto.
• Bernard du Bus de Gisignies (1808–1874), law, politician, ornithologist and paleontologist.
• Hippoliet Van Peene (1811–1864), physician and playwright, wrote the lyrics of the Flemish anthem "De Vlaamse Leeuw"
• Charles-Louis-Joseph-Xavier de la Vallée-Poussin (1827–1903), a mineralogist and geologist
• Father Patrick Francis Healy (1830–1910), 29th president of Georgetown University in the United States, first Jesuit priest of African American ancestry, first person of acknowledged African-American ancestry to earn PhD
• Antanas Baranauskas (1835–1902), Polish-Lithuanian poet.
• Arthur Vierendeel (1852–1940) civil engineer.
• Emile Joseph Dillon (1854–1933), linguist, author and journalist.
• Albrecht Rodenbach (1856–1880), poet.
• Albin van Hoonacker (1857–1933) Catholic theologian and Biblical scholar
• Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin (1866–1962), mathematician who proved the prime number theorem.
• Edgar Sengier (1879–1963), director of the Union Minière du Haut Katanga.
• Frans Van Cauwelaert (1880–1961), politician.
• Jean-Baptiste Janssens, S.J. (1889–1964), twenty-seventh Superior General of the Society of Jesus.
• Weng Wenhao (1889–1971), founder of modern Chinese geography.
• Georges Lemaître (1894–1966), astronomer, priest and proposer of the Big Bang theory.
• Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979), American archbishop, television personality, and writer.
• Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia, (1900–1970), physician, social reformer, president of Costa Rica 1940–1944
• Saint Alberto Hurtado, (1901–1952), Chilean Jesuit priest, social worker and writer. Canonized in 2005.
• Victor Delhez, (1902–1985), engraver and artist.
• Hendrik Elias, (1902–1973), Flemish Nationalist, quisling.
• Maurice Anthony Biot (1905–1985), Belgian-American physicist and the founder of the theory of poroelasticity.
• Léon Degrelle, (1906–1994), founder of Rexism, quisling.
• Jean Charles Snoy et d'Oppuers (1907–1991), law, diplomat, businessman.
• Herman Van Breda (1911–1974), founder of the Husserl Archives.
• André Molitor (1911–2005), law, private secretary of Baudouin I of Belgium.
• Otto von Habsburg (1912 - ), the current head of the Habsburg family.
• Tang Yuhan, (1912 - ), Chinese oncologist.
• Pieter De Somer (1917–1985), first rector of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
• Christian de Duve (1917 - ), Nobel Prize in Medicine 1974, for his discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell.
• Anton van Wilderode (1919–1998), Flemish activist and writer.
• Aster Berkhof, (1920 - ), Flemish writer.
• Charles Mertens de Wilmars (1921–1994), psychiatrist, professor at Harvard Medical School
• Malachi Martin (1921–1999), Irish writer.
• Antoon Vergote (1921 -), Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, psychologist and psychoanalyst (also known as Antoine Vergote).
• Jan Zaprudnik (1924 - ), Belarusian-American historian and poet.
• Geza Vermes (1924 - ), religious historian and translator into English of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
• José J. Fripiat, a chemist, and laureate of the 1967 Francqui Prize
• Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928 - ), Peruvian Dominican theologian, founder of Liberation Theology.
• Adolphe Gesché (1928–2003), theologian
• Jacques Taminiaux (1928 - ), philosopher, 1977 laureate of the Francqui Prize
• Camilo Torres (1929–1966), Colombian priest and guerillero.
• Jean-Pierre de Launoit (1935 - ), businessman.
• Abdul Qadeer Khan (1936 - ), Pakistani metallurgist considered to be the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.
• Jacques van Ypersele de Strihou (1936 - ), private secretary of the King of Belgium.
• Nguza Karl-i-Bond (1938–2003), notable Zairian politician.
• Baron Piet Van Waeyenberge (1938 - ), economics, President of De Warande.
• Bernard Lietaer (1942 - ), economist and author.
• Arthur Ulens (1946 - ), chemistry and economics, businessman
• Afif Safieh (1950 - ), Palestinian diplomat, ambassador to the Russian Federation.
• Herman Van Den Berghe, founder of the Centrum voor Menselijke Erfelijkheid (Belgian Centre for Human Heredity).
• Herman Van Rompuy (1947 - ), Belgian statesman. Appointed President of the European Council in November 2009.
• Jan Lauwereyns (1969 - ), cognitive neuroscientist, poet

更多

• Old University of Leuven
• University of Lovanium
• Universities in Leuven
• Collegium Trilingue
• State University of Leuven
• Catholic University of Mechlin
• Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
• Université catholique de Louvain

Notes