Jan van Eyck Square

In the Middle Ages, this square was the beating heart of international commerce. Where tourists now sip coffee, merchants from Italy, Spain, Germany, Scandinavia, and the Middle East once crowded around the Toll House and the Rijkepijndershuis, loading and unloading goods while citizens watched from the Burghers' Lodge. You could hear every language spoken in Europe at this port — Bruges was the medieval equivalent of a global trading hub, and this square was its loading dock.

The square sits at the intersection of the Spiegelrei and Academiestraat, at the point where the city's canal system once connected to sea-going trade routes. Overland carts left from here for Germany, France, and Northern Italy. Ships sailed to the British Isles, Scandinavia, the Iberian Peninsula, and beyond. Bruges' position at the crossroads of maritime and overland trade made it, for a time, the most important commercial city in Northern Europe — a medieval Manhattan, handling wool, spices, silk, and banking with equal facility.

The square itself was created at the end of the 18th century after St John's Bridge was demolished and a section of the Kraanrei Canal was covered over. In 1844, it was named after Jan van Eyck, the Netherlandish painter who lived and worked in Bruges from 1432 until his death in 1441. A bronze statue of van Eyck stands in the centre, though the painter would probably be more interested in the quality of the light than in his own monument.

The surrounding buildings include the former Toll House where import duties were collected and the ornate facade of the Burghers' Lodge, where Bruges' merchant class gathered. The lodge now houses the Belgian state archives for the region, which is a very Belgian way of honouring a building — turn it into a filing cabinet.