The University of Leuven was founded in 1425 by Pope Martin V as the first university in the Low Countries, and soon became one of the largest and well-known universities in Europe.
Some of the scholars and lecturers associated with the university were the humanist Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), the cartographer Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594), whose map projection is still in use, Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), one of the founders of modern anatomy, and many more.