A Brill Calendar: July 7

Few cities in Holland boast a history that may serve as a microcosm of Holland’s history generally; Leyden is one of them.

Vestiges of an urban past remain here, inviting both residents and visitors to discover and explore, to reconstruct and reconsider. It has been said that history doesn’t start with the ancient empires of China, Mesopotamia or Egypt: but yesterday, in an endless quest. Each present is under the obligation to build its own past; the reason why there isn’t - and never can be - an end to examining the past.

A main reason why Leyden is endlessly fascinating concerns learning, scholarship and religion: no minor agents in the shaping of what the world came understand by ‘Holland’ and ‘Europe’: mere names, as long as they have not been given life by participating in them personally.

Since there is hardly a more personable relationship in the world than the one between a great author and a good publisher and while no Dutch city is more exclusively stamped by Academia and its printers throughout the ages, any leisurely walk within Leyden’s old inner city is an invitation to scholarly serendipity. As long as museums are associated with obligatory boredom and irrelevant dust, the Rapenburg and its urban environs can’t be classified as an open-air museum.

After the Second World War, Leyden sprawled out, conquering its country-side: the shortest of all these new streets and thorough-fares received the name ‘Plantijnstraat’ on July 7, 1961. There is no finer index on a city’s past than the ‘grand ensemble’ of names on its street-map; taken together they summarize Holland’s history.