13 November 2025
The ancient Batavian settlement near the Dutch city of Nijmegen (Nimwegen) was called Oppidum Batavorum by the Romans until the Roman emperor Traian granted the right to hold a market in 104 AD, after which it was called Ulpia Noviomagus (the new market). The Romans built a castle (Castellum) on the hill. Frankish rulers reigned … Read more » “The St. Nicolas Chapel Nimwegen”
27 October 2024
Else Eisinga was born in a small Frisian village in 1744. He worked from an early age in his father’s wool combing business and became a true master of this craft, even winning an international prize in 1820. That is not why he is still well known, however. His self-study in astronomy and mathematics enabled … Read more » “Else Eisinga’s Planetarium in Franeker”
2 October 2024
The pioneering image-maker of the Western world was Emperor August, who founded the first empire covering parts of three continents and ruled for more than forty years ( 27 BC-14 AD). The second place is held by the French Sun King Louis XIV (1638-1715), who ruled an expanding Kingdom for 72 years. The Versailles complex … Read more » “The World according Emperor August and King Louis XIV”
9 March 2024
The first European book using pictures and text as a pedagogical methodology was written by Jan Amos Comnianus (Komenský in Czech, 1592-1670). With this book, he sought to champion for world peace through education by combining visualisation and texts. The title of the book, Orbis Sensualium Pictus, means the visible world. By the time of … Read more » “Theatrum Mundi and the Theatricalisation of Society”
27 June 2023
Cemeteries are like an open history book. One of the oldest cemeteries in the Netherlands, leaving aside churches as places of burial, is the Portuguese Jewish cemetery at Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, a village close to Amsterdam. The cemetery dates from 1614, when two Jewish communities from Amsterdam purchased a farmstead on which stood a … Read more » “Centuries of Jewish European History”