• A. Leiden
  • B. Utrecht
  • C. Amsterdam
  • D. Groningen

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Think of a city in South Holland with many historic buildings and a serious academic reputation.

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The correct answer is A. Leiden. Leiden University was founded in 1575 by William of Orange, and that was no coincidence - it was actually a kind of thank-you gift to the city for their brave resistance during the Spanish siege. This makes it the oldest existing university in our country. Pretty impressive when you consider that people like Descartes walked around here, Rembrandt showed his face briefly (though he didn’t stay long), and that the university has produced countless prime ministers and even Nobel Prize winners.

📚 More background information

Leiden University has truly played a special role in how the Netherlands developed scientifically. In the 17th century - the Golden Age - it grew into one of the most important universities in all of Europe. They had an enormous reputation especially in theology, law, and medicine.

What I personally find fascinating: they already had an anatomical theater there in 1594. The first in the Netherlands. Public dissections were held there, but it wasn’t intended solely for medical education. It was also a kind of moral spectacle where visitors were confronted with their own mortality. Pretty macabre actually, but apparently that was completely normal back then.

Interestingly enough, Utrecht University came 61 years later, in 1636. Amsterdam did have the Athenaeum Illustre from 1632, but it only received proper university status in 1877. The University of Groningen (1614) is actually number two in terms of age, so Leiden won by a narrow margin.

Leiden University’s motto is “Praesidium Libertatis” - Bastion of Freedom. This refers both to academic freedom and to that historic resistance against the Spanish. That tradition of free thinking and critical inquiry has truly shaped Dutch universities, and you can still see it reflected today in how we approach science and debate.