In 1925, four Jesuits founded the Ruusbroec Institute, a research centre dedicated to the scholarly history of Dutch piety. A hundred years on, the exhibition INSPIRE(D) tells the story of that mission: to study spiritual heritage in depth and to spark interest in it. You will meet the founders – Stracke, Van Mierlo, Reypens and Poukens – learn about their quest for manuscripts thought to be lost, and discover their passion for the mystical authors of the Low Countries, from Jan van Ruusbroec to Hadewijch. Along the way, you will explore who inspires this work, what is being preserved, and how it evolves.
The exhibition brings the rich collection of the Ruusbroec Society Library to life. Alongside rare medieval manuscripts and early printed books, you will discover the faith of ‘ordinary’ people: devotional prints, pilgrimage pennants, ex-votos and miraculous images, which tell stories of miracles, healing and the care believers show for one another. In this way, INSPIRE(D) showcases a society that is anything but static: a research centre that has expanded its field of study from medieval mysticism to the religious phenomena of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and which today, as part of the University of Antwerp, aims to share its wealth of knowledge with a wide audience.
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The four founding Jesuits -
Some of the pilgrimage flags -
Presentation of our cut- and paste work in devotional prints -
Inspire(d)
