Erasmus House Museum

The Erasmus House (or Museum of Erasmus House), located near the Collegiate of Saints Peter –and-Guidon, in Anderlecht (Brussels) and dating from the fifteenth century, is an ancient canon house attached to the collegiate . It is now a small Erasmian museum, in memory of the great Erasmus, the “prince of humanists” who stayed there in 1521.

Canonical house

The house, of late Gothic, or first renaissance style, was built in the late fifteenth century by Pierre Wichmans, canon and schoolmaster of the Collegiate of Saints-Peter-and-Guidon since 1507. A man of culture, the canon Wichmans received willingly scholars and intellectuals there. Among them was Erasmus of Rotterdam with which a friendship was established. It is possible that Erasmus, a great traveller, came several times by his friend Wichmans, but it is of his stay from 1521 (five months) that there are traces.

Visit of Erasmus in 1521

Coming from Leuven, Erasmus arrived by his friend Wichmans, in Anderlecht, a suburb of Brussels, in May 1521. He came to stay in the country (as he wrote himself). There were first health reasons as he suffered from persistent fevers and the campaign did him good. There were mostly political and religious reasons. Luther had just been excommunicated (1520) and the supporters of the reform were hunted. Erasmus considered it prudent to move away from the University of Louvain (place of passionate theological debates), and even from the political power of Brussels where the protectors were becoming distant. Erasmus was certainly regarded as a hazardous 'sympathizer' even though he always said he wanted to remain Catholic. Closely following the publication of his books and manuscripts in Anderlecht he also corrected proofs of a text given to his printer of Leuven. For the same reasons of personal safety he left Anderlecht for Basel in October 1521. After a stay of eight years, when Basel took the Protestant side and not wishing to give the impression that he favoured the Lutheran party, he left on 13th April 1529 for Freiburg-in-Breisgau and returned to Basel in 1535 to die in the night of 11th to 12th July 1536.

Description of the Erasmus House before 1995

The canonical house was restored in 1930 and transformed into an Erasmian museum. This is probably the only museum dedicated to the memory of this great Renaissance humanist who sought to create a European culture around the Latin language. A library accessible to researchers includes some 1,200 books and manuscripts speaking of Erasmus.

More than a museum, it is a house that still seems to host the great humanist.

Given here, is the description of the Erasmus House as it is described in all published guides and Musea Nostra collection, but which no longer corresponds to the current state of the museum. Since then, not only the rooms have been redone, but part of the collections have been arranged according to modern museological criteria, the Erasmus House has become now the Museum of the House of Erasmus, who also opens to exhibitions, concerts and other cultural activities.

Rhetoric chamber

The rhetoric chamber is the room where, it seems, Erasmus received visitors. It contains furniture of that period.

Study

The room, overlooking the garden, was the study of Erasmus. Chair and inkstand restore a vintage atmosphere (not necessarily those who were used by Erasmus himself). One gathered there a series of portraits of the humanist, some of which are famous as those of Quentin Metsys, Holbein and Albrecht Dürer. His correspondence shows that the humanist was in contact with the great personalities of his time: Thomas More, Francis I, Charles V, Luther.

Renaissance Room

The large room, upstairs, was perhaps the dining room. There were displayed in showcases original editions of books by Erasmus arranged according to the printers to which they were entrusted. Using the three classical languages ​​in some of his writings (Latin, Greek and Hebrew) Erasmus had to work with the best printers of the time, including Johann Froben of Basel. He personally checked the printing proofs.

The garden

Two years after the accession of the site to the rank of museum, Charles Van Elst designed an English garden in a romantic spirit in 1932.

It is in this space that was held the eleven biennials of Outside  Sculpture of  Belgium between 1946 and 1966, a local scale event but that has the merit of being the first outdoor sculpture exhibition in after -war Europe, two years before the more famous of Battersea Park in London in 1948.

The diseases garden of René Pechère

However, it is the garden of diseases, designed by René Pechère, in a spirit faithful to the Renaissance and established in 1987 which will make the success of the place. Plants known in the sixteenth century for their medicinal properties, which were used to treat Erasmus, were grown there again.

The philosophical garden by Benoît Fondu

A "philosophical garden" was added there in 2000. This philosophical garden designed by the curator Alexandre Vanautgaerden and designed in collaboration with landscape architect Benoît Fondu in the manner of a hortus conclusus, with the help of several contemporary artists, opened a new perspective behind the ancient house. Marie-Jo Lafontaine has drawn there on the floor of the sheet-like structures - the tears of the sky - sometimes full of vegetation, sometimes filled with water and charged with an Erasmian adage where the sky is reflected; Bob Verschueren dug in the heart of the garden, place of focusing meditation, a "volcano of life", a  beech strain from which flows a water trickle; Catherine Beaugrand has sown her "loci", milestones and stages of plant life; Perejaume created an inner recess space, a room of vision, comprising 11,500 glass lenses, lead crimped like the old windows; Peter Porter is the author of benches pretending to be like plants out of the ground. This garden reminds the love of Erasmus and his humanist contemporaries for gardens and alludes to the one described in its religious Banquet or the one that Lipsius describes in his De concordia.

Guided tours

To book a guided tour of the Erasmus House, gardens and Béguinage in French, Dutch, English, German, Italian and Spanish, please contact Aisha Bourarach, cultural mediator of the Erasmus House.

* For who ? for everyone
* When? from Tuesday to Sunday
* Time? about 1 hour (Erasmus House) or 1:30 (Erasmus House & Beguine)
* Reservations? 02/521 13 83 or a.bourarach@erasmushouse.museum

Contact

Erasmus House
Rue du Chapitre 31
B-1070 Brussels
Phone. + 32 2 521 13 83
Fax + 32 2 527 12 69
E-mail: info@erasmushouse.museum