12 October 2021 – Day 1

The Royal Library of Belgium (KBR)

The Entrance of the Royal Library of Belgium

Marie-Anne Dage, secretary of the Organising Committee, and Jean-Louis Renteux

Opening of the Symposium

Sara Lammens, General Director a.i. at Royal Library of Belgium, opens the Symposium

Jean-Louis Renteux, Vice-President of the Brussels Map Circle

Hans Kok, past Chairman of IMCoS Executive Committee

Lectures

Wouter Bracke, curator of the map collections at the Royal Library of Belgium and President of the Brussels Map Circle, presents an introduction to Belgium

Karen De Coene speaks of her Ph D research on medieval cartography

Pieter Martens (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) evokes military architecture and cartography in the 16-17th centuries

Pieter Martens, Wouter Bracke and Karen De Coene

The audience

Visit to the Dukes of Burgondy Museum

Visit around the Royal Library of Belgium Map Room

Colin Dupont presents a selection of maps from the Library in the dimmed light of the Librarium

Visit to a selection of the reconstituted library of Mercator

Selection of sixteenth century scientific books

13 October 2021 – Day 2

Lectures

Joost Depuydt (Plantin Moretus Museum) during his lecture on Abraham Ortelius

Koenraad van Cleempoel (Professor at Hasselt University) presents Gerardus Mercator as maker of scientific instruments

Joost Depuydt, Hans Kok and Koenraad van Cleempoel

Luis Robles (Université Libre de Bruxelles) reviews early representations of Northern Europe in nautical cartography

Geert van Paemel (Professor at KU Leuven) presents van Langren’s map of the Moon

Visit to the scientific instruments section of the Art & History Museum

Hans Kok and Jan De Graeve

Jean-Louis Renteux and Jan De Graeve

Jan De Graeve gives explanations about the instruments

Sundials and other instruments

Armillary sphere

Visit to the Map Room of the Royal Military Museum

Anne Godfroid, head of the Map and Plans section, presents the Carte des Routes de poste de la Russie européenne, exécutée sur ordre de S.E. M. le Du de Feltre, ministre de la guerre, sous la direction de M. le général Comte Sanson, au Dépôt général de la Guerre, Paris MDCCCXII

Plan des positions occupées dans le haut de la ville de Bruxelles les 23, 24, 25 à 26 septembre 1830

Patrick Nefors, head of the Documentation Centre, presents the 1830 map of Brussels

14 October 2021 – Day 3

Lectures

Wouter Bracke talks about the Ostend East India Company (in place of
Jan Parmentier, unable to attend because of health problems)

Gábor Timár gives a lecture from Budapest (via Zoom) on cartography in the eighteenth century Habsburg Empire

Jan Vandersmissen (Ghent University) presents the role of geography and cartography in Leopold II’s ventures

Wouter Bracke, Imre Demhardt and Jan Vandersmissen

Robert Clancy gives a lecture from Australia (via Zoom) on mapping of the Antarctic

Hans Kok (former chief pilot at KLM) talks about aviation maps

Wouter Bracke closes the academic part of the Symposium

Imre Demhardt presents the programme of the 39th IMCoS Intermational Symposium in 2022 at Arlington, Texas

Visit to the Map Room of the State Archives

Iason Jongepier presents maps from the State Archives

One of the longest map of the State Archives

Carte particulière des Environs d’une Partie des Limistes en Flandre entre Les Terres de S,M,I, et Catholicque et celle des Etats Generaux des Provinces Unies. […]. 1716

Official dinner at the Cercle Royal Gaulois

In the name of IMCoS, Hans Kok thanks Marie-Anne Dage and the other organizers of the Brussels symposium

Dinner at the Cercle Royal Gaulois

For the Official dinner photo album, follow this link.