KU Leuven

Founded 1425. Oldest Catholic university in the world still operating, Erasmus and Vesalius taught here.

Overview

Founded by papal bull in 1425, Leuven became the Low Countries' first university. Erasmus edited his Greek New Testament here, Vesalius studied before rewriting anatomy, and Mercator learned his craft in its milieu. The university split along language lines in 1968, the Dutch-speaking half keeping Leuven and the French half founding Louvain-la-Neuve. Its biomedical group runs a university hospital at European scale. About 60,000 students fill a Belgian town built around them. The longest-serving Catholic university keeps a Gothic library rebuilt after both world wars.