On our recent jaunt to Antwerp, we dutifully hit all of its World Heritage sites. But words fail me: there should be a way to describe the theme that connects these, but the best I can come up with is "self-determination." I don't think that's quite right (besides being rather soporific), so I welcome any suggestions.
First there's the béguinage. I love this concept. Back in the late Middle Ages, single women who lived quietly religious lives but did not want to take vows built these enclosed communities within major Flemish cities. They are like little towns, separated from the male-dominated world by high walls and approachable through only a single door that is locked at night. Once inside, there's a small church and modest lodgings around a central courtyard.
But officially on the list is the Plantin-Moretus complex, an active printing press from 1555-1867. One of the earliest and largest printing houses in Europe, it churned out copies of Greek and Roman classics, new scientific works, treatises on philosophy, and other intellectual but secular topics. (The underlying theme of the museum is: Gutenberg, whatever. We've got humanism.)
The complex is built around a courtyard, with 35 rooms now set up as a museum. Some rooms are part of the publisher's family home, filled with tapestries, paintings, embossed leather wall panelings, heavy wood furniture, and the other trappings of genteel Flemish life in the Renaissance. There's the old book shop that feels like a stage set from a period piece; other rooms display equipment used to cast the movable type.
Finally, the belfries of the Stadhuis and Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal. UNESCO has inscribed a long list of belfries in Belgium and northern France as the symbol of the aldermen, in contrast to the lord's castle and the church's bell-tower. I'm not sure how a belfry that is part of a cathedral matches that description, but maybe they couldn't figure out how to inscribe the rather plain tower of Antwerp's town hall without also including the much more stunning and impressive tower of the nearby cathedral.
First there's the béguinage. I love this concept. Back in the late Middle Ages, single women who lived quietly religious lives but did not want to take vows built these enclosed communities within major Flemish cities. They are like little towns, separated from the male-dominated world by high walls and approachable through only a single door that is locked at night. Once inside, there's a small church and modest lodgings around a central courtyard.
I find it very meaningful that women were able to create a third way for themselves 800 years ago. Faced with the choice of being subjected to a husband or to the Church, I too might have opted out, leading instead a simple life focused on service and prayer, one in which I could earn my own living with the help of female friends. According to UNESCO, the communities were even democratically run, with an elected leader and often an elected council. A much better solution to the problem of independent-minded women than burning them as witches, imho.
I recall Amsterdam's and Brugge's béguinages as shady green spaces with elegantly white-washed houses. Antwerp's is much more imposing, built in red brick with castle-like details. Technically Antwerp's (and Amsterdam's) are not included in the official list of 13 Flemish béguinages inscribed on the World Heritage List. But the concept is so cool I'm including it here anyway.
But officially on the list is the Plantin-Moretus complex, an active printing press from 1555-1867. One of the earliest and largest printing houses in Europe, it churned out copies of Greek and Roman classics, new scientific works, treatises on philosophy, and other intellectual but secular topics. (The underlying theme of the museum is: Gutenberg, whatever. We've got humanism.)
The printing presses are still set up (including two claimed to be the oldest surviving printing presses in the world), next to rows of cases of movable type. The amount of work that went into setting up and printing a single page is impressive, a reminder of the value of knowledge. Late in the afternoon, with slanting sunlight streaming through the windows, the printing room looked like a divine gift.
The complex is built around a courtyard, with 35 rooms now set up as a museum. Some rooms are part of the publisher's family home, filled with tapestries, paintings, embossed leather wall panelings, heavy wood furniture, and the other trappings of genteel Flemish life in the Renaissance. There's the old book shop that feels like a stage set from a period piece; other rooms display equipment used to cast the movable type.
Then there were rooms and rooms dedicated to books: one room had a beautiful collection of illuminated manuscripts, one was dedicated to early atlases, several displayed works by famous Flemish humanists I had never heard of. It was an overabundance of books, all in the setting of a Renaissance-era mansion. I need a new genre of museums, in which I could categorize this place, the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, the Museum of Hunting and Nature in Paris, and the Sonneveld House in Rotterdam. Like one word that sums up "well-curated living history museums full of curiosities"?
Finally, the belfries of the Stadhuis and Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal. UNESCO has inscribed a long list of belfries in Belgium and northern France as the symbol of the aldermen, in contrast to the lord's castle and the church's bell-tower. I'm not sure how a belfry that is part of a cathedral matches that description, but maybe they couldn't figure out how to inscribe the rather plain tower of Antwerp's town hall without also including the much more stunning and impressive tower of the nearby cathedral.
At any rate, the point is that besides being pretty, the belfries symbolize the emergence of the city and of merchants as the leading forces in society. Which brings us back to this theme I have trouble naming: the idea of the individual breaking off from the power of established hierarchies; of the spread of secular knowledge; of the valuing of individual human minds and capabilities. Liberalism, in the old-school sense? Liberty? Individualism?
At any rate, it's a good heritage to have.
No comments:
Post a Comment