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26 Route 3. BRUGES. S.W. Quarter:
Bruges attained the culminating point of its prosperity during
the first half of the 15th cent., when the Dukes of Burgundy held
their court here. During this period a brilliant colony of artists
was retained at Bruges in busy employment, and their works still
shed a lustre on the name of the city. The gradual silting up of the
harbours on the adjacent coast, however, began to undermine the
prosperity of the town towards the close of the 15th cent., and its
fall was accelerated by contests with Maximilian (p. 37), who trans-
ferred his favour to Antwerp, and by the rise of the S. German com-
mercial towns. In1505 the Fuggers, the merchant-princes of Augs-
burg, removed their office from Bruges to Antwerp, and they were
followed in 1545 by the Hanseatic ‘factories’. Finally the religious
commotions of the latter half of the 16th cent. completed the com-
mercial ruin of Bruges. — Of all the cities of Belgium Bruges has
best preserved its medieval characteristics (p. xlvi), in spite of the
erection of many tasteless new buildings and the removal of the
old town wall, which was razed about the middle of the 19th cent.
to meet the needs of modern traffic, leaving nothing standing ex-
ceptthe four gates. — Comp. E. Gilliat Smith’s ‘The Story of Bruges’,
in the Medieval Towns Series (London, 41904).
a. South-West Quarter of the City.
From the Rarway Srarion (Pl. A, 5; p. 23), which occupies
the site of the old Marché du Vendredi, two streets lead into the
town: to the left, the Rue Nord-du-Sablon, or Noord Zand-Straat,
and to the right, the Rue Sud-du-Sablon, or Zuid Zand-Straat. The
first of these is continued by the Rue St. Amand (Pi. B, 5); the
second by the Rue des Pierres or Steenstraat (Pl. B, 5). The last-
named street, which contains many picturesque gabled houses (lately
restored) of the 16-17th cent., skirts the Place Stévin (tight), con-
taining a bronze statue (by Eug. Simonis; 1846) of Simon Stévin
or Stevinus (1548-1620), the geometrician, who by establishing the
thesis of the parallelogram of forces and by discovering the hydro-
static paradox became one of the founders of mechanical science.
In the Cimetiére St. Sauveur, at the end of the Rue Sud-du-
Sablon, to the right, is the church of —
Sint Salvator (St. Sawveur; Pl. B, dD), which has ranked as a
cathedral since 1834 (comp. p. 39). The church, of very ancient
foundation, was rebuilt in the early-Gothic style after a fire, between
1183 and 1223; the nave and transept were largely renewed after
another fire in 1358; while the five chapels of the choir date from
1482-1527, and the vaulting of the ambulatory from 1527-30. Ex-
ternally it is a cumbrous building, disfigured by later additions and
surmounted by a castle-like W. tower, the Romanesque lower part
of which was built in 1116-27 and continued in 1358, while the
upper part was completed in 1846 and provided with a spire in 1874. |
