Collegium Trilingue
In addition to a chapel and auditoria, the complex consisted of a kitchen, refectory, rooms for students and professors (accessible through the so-called ‘Wentelsteen’, which still exists today) and a library, providing storage for Busleyden’s invaluable collection of books of manuscripts, which had been brought over from Mechlin by boat.
[citation needed] At the instigation of Erasmus, Matthaeus Adrianus (c. 1475–after 1521) started with the Hebrew lectures as early as March 1518, and Hadrianus Barlandus (1486–1536; Latin) and Rutger Rescius (c. 1495–1545; Greek) followed suit in September of the same year.
The recent Reuchlin affair in Cologne and the stir caused by Luther in Wittenberg only strengthened the theologians' aversion to the study of Greek and Hebrew, and the Arts Faculty wanted to maintain its monopoly of language teaching.
[citation needed] The Collegium Trilingue experienced a difficult start, which, as mentioned, was partly due to issues of housing and the tense relationship with the different faculties.
The concerns and critiques that were voiced by the Louvain theologians were compiled and put to paper in the De trium linguarum et studii theologici ratione dialogus (1519) of Jacobus Latomus (c. 1475–1544), a professor of theology and advisor to the Inquisition.
The Valla-Erasmus method can be summarized by the dictum ‘Ad fontes’: the scientific study of theology should be grounded in a critical reading of the source texts, and should not start from the authorities of medieval scholasticism.
[citation needed] The college’s program attracted hundreds of students from the early years onward, and already during the 1520s an extension of the existing auditoria was required to accommodate the ever increasing influx of youngsters.
Among them was Petrus Nannius (1496–1557), who held the Latin chair between 1539 and 1557, succeeding to Goclenius, and is known for his work on Virgil (Deuterologiae sive spicilegia Petri Nannii Alcmariani in quartum librum Aeneidos Virgilii, 1544).
[citation needed] Relying on mainly Virgil and Cicero, who both belonged to the household authors at the college, Valerius wrote a series of textbooks, including one on grammar and one on rhetoric, which were both reprinted numerous times well into the seventeenth century (Grammaticarum institutionum libri, 1550; In universam bene dicendi rationem tabula, 1558).
[citation needed] This period of prosperity came to an abrupt end during the final quarter of the sixteenth century, when Louvain was occupied by Spanish troops in the course of the Eighty Years’ War.
[citation needed] In the early 17th century, the Collegium Trilingue was in a deplorable state, despite the appointment of the eminent humanist scholar and philologist Justus Lipsius to the Latin chair in 1592.
The teaching of Latin was put into the competent hands of Erycius Puteanus (1547–1646), a student of Lipsius, who enjoyed an international reputation for his rhetorical skill and pedagogical insight.
Not averse to self-adulation, Vernulaeus emphasized in his Academia Lovaniensis (1627) that since its foundation in 1517 the Collegium Trilingue had managed to produce first-rung figures in each and every branch of intellectual inquiry.
[citation needed] The Latin chair remained vacant after 1768, and along with the university the Collegium Trilingue was suspended in 1797 during the period of unrest that followed the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789.
[citation needed] During this later period, the buildings of the once-celebrated college served as a social house, printing establishment, ice factory and fish smokehouse, among other things.
