It all started with William of Orange: this prince and leader of the Dutch Revolt founded Leiden University on 8 February 1575. He wanted to train good administrators and Protestant clergymen. Freedom and empowerment were important principles for him. Like the University’s founder, Carel Stolker also joined in the sometimes fierce discussions about these fundamental values. The monogram A.W. can be seen at the bottom right of the portrait, but the maker is unknown. This may have been intentional because it was dangerous at that time to sympathise with the rebellious prince. The panel is fairly small (h. 31 x w. 32 cm), making it easy to transport in secret.

The Leiden archive has the University’s original birth certificate, the Charter from 1575, Its first words are: ‘Philips by der Gracien Gods Coninck van Castillien’ (Philip by the Grace of God, King of Castile). It is fitting for Carel Stolker that the University has a sound legal basis and that the two founding documents are linked to the two great opponents from the time. Contrary to popular belief, the Charter is in the name of the Spanish king, Phillip II, not William of Orange. The statutes, however, are in the name of the ‘father of the nation’.

Soon after it opened, the University began a fencing school in the Faliede Bagijnkerk, a former church that now houses the University’s administration department and Executive Board. The fencers followed precise mathematical sequences. This print is one of a series of four: the others are of the Hortus botanicus, the Anatomical Theatre and the Library. The prints show the main academic institutions in 17th-century Leiden and may have been a form of early-modern city marketing aimed at attracting more students and scholars.

This 17th-century map features the city highlights, including Pieterskerk, the City Hall, the Academy Building and the Hortus botanicus. Since the reopening of Museum De Lakenhal in 2019, the University has had its own room as part of the permanent display. In consultation with Carel Stolker, the curators of the exhibition chose an object that represents the relationship between city and university.

The Arab world and China were regarded early on as important sources of knowledge and scholarship. In around 1650, the Leiden city council ordered this map of Beijing from the renowned publisher and cartographer Joan Blaeu. Since its very beginning, international relations have been important to the University. In recent years, University delegations led by the Rector or Vice-Rector have established links with universities in China, Japan, Indonesia, Morocco, Mexico, Brazil and other countries.

This kind of solemn yet festive procession has been filing along the Rapenburg canal for centuries. As a result, passers-by also see that Leiden is a real university city. A good relationship with the city has always been important for rectors of the University. The academic senate and city council were closely linked in 1575, as the next object also shows. Since the beginning of this century, the University has also had a thriving campus in The Hague.

Lady Justice may be a woman, but for a long time the University was a man’s world, and so too was the academic court. Some of the aldermen also sat on the city council, and judgments were delivered in the city hall. This statue comes from that court. The first female students arrived at the University in the last quarter of the 19th century, but it was only in the 20th century that the number of female students and professors increased dramatically. The first female rector was only appointed in 2021.

Some scholars master a wide range of disciplines. Rudolph Snellius was the first mathematician to become Rector of Leiden University, in 1607. Like Professor Hester Bijl, the new Rector from 8 February 2021, Snellius combined exact science with linguistics, in his case Hebrew. Bijl obtained a PhD in technical mathematics and also studied English language and literature.

This unique manuscript symbolises the early collaboration with the Arab world. Thomas Erpenius became the first professor of Arabic in Leiden in 1613. He had learned Arabic in Paris with the aid of a Moroccan envoy, al-Hajari. This secretary to the Sultan later helped Jacobus Golius, a student of Erpenius when he accompanied a diplomatic mission to Morocco as a translator. Al-Hajari helped Golius acquire Arabic manuscripts, including ‘The Richly Decorated Robes’, which he brought to Leiden with him.

He held no fewer than three chairs (Botany, Medicine and Chemistry). Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738) was an all-rounder: doctor, anatomist, botanist, chemist, humanist and researcher. His contemporaries called him the teacher of Europe. He was also Rector, and thus a predecessor of Carel Stolker. Soon after its foundation, the University attracted important scholars, including the humanists Justus Lipsius and Josephus Scaliger.

They must have been magical moments, those first experiments with electricity, and plenty of experiments were taking place in the second half of the 18th century. This model of a church was used to demonstrate the use of a lightning rod. Scientists demonstrated that electrical forces could be controlled. There were often fierce debates within the University, which is only fitting for a university with the motto Praesidium Libertatis. ‘Let the lightning strike’.

During Carel Stolker’s long rectorship, there were times when it was necessary to take up the sword. This huge prehistoric European sword could be seen to symbolise this. Or could it? This sword was not used for battles, but most likely signified the high rank of a dignitary. As a ceremonial emblem it is therefore comparable to the livery collar that distinguishes the Rector from other professors. It was probably less comfortable to wear though.

Athena, or Minerva as the Romans called her, is depicted here on a Greek vase. As the goddess of wisdom, she is the patron saint of Leiden University. In Graeco-Roman mythology, important notions such as wisdom, justice and peace were pre-eminently associated with women. On this vase, Athena has taken off her helmet and set her spear down. On the logo of our university, the spear lies on the ground even, and Athena is reading a book. Hester Bijl will be the first female Rector Magnificus of Leiden University. May Hester lead the university as a wise Pallas Athena.

Even the longest-serving rector knows, as Carel Stolker freely admits, that he too is a bit player in a long and turbulent history. Roman emperors were not quite as modest and had plenty of statues made of themselves. Emperor Trajan, for instance, who also served for a long term. He ruled from AD 98 to 117 and the Roman Empire expanded considerably under his reign. Here he is depicted as a strategising general. The goddess Medusa and griffins on his breastplate symbolise his power.

An innovative book from the 17th century. In 1638, the Leiden-born physician and botanist Willem Piso arrived in Brazil together with the German Georg Marcgraf. Piso was the personal physician of Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, the governor of Dutch Brazil, and a pioneer of tropical medicine. The multitalented Marcgraf was, among others, a skilled botanist, astronomer and physician. Both observed the habits of the Portuguese and indigenous populations, and recorded this knowledge in their book Historia naturalis Brasiliae.

Knobbed argonaut is the intriguing name of this Indian Ocean squid. It was Sebald Brugmans, Leiden professor and Rector, who acquired it in the 18th century. Brugmans (1763-1819) spent years painstakingly expanding his collection. After his death, the University bought the collection for the then astronomical sum of 34,000 guilders. At that time, it was common for collections to be sold in their entirety after the death of the passionate collector. Museums barely existed and surviving relatives did not receive a pension, so they often needed money.

This extremely old species, with its characteristic leaves, is considered to be a living fossil and is no longer found in the wild. The tree is worshipped as a god in Asia. The Ginkgo in the Hortus was planted in 1785 and is one of the oldest specimens in the Netherlands. The tree symbolises hope, love, timelessness and a long life. Like this Japanese maidenhair tree, Carel Stolker has firm roots in Leiden. For inspiration, he spent midsummer night in the Hortus in 2013, on a bed in the open air, near the much-loved Ginkgo.

This kind of statue was made when an Oba (ruler) died, to honour the deceased. In 1897, British troops carried out a punitive expedition against the Kingdom of Benin, in present-day Nigeria, taking a large number of bronze statues and reliefs as spoils. The collection was divided among several ethnographic museums in Europe, including the one in Leiden. At the moment, a policy on the return of colonial spoils is currently being worked on. As a member of the Supervisory Board of the National Museum of World Cultures, Carel Stolker is closely following the discussion on the restitution of colonial collections.

Three long-forgotten gowns were found in the corner of an attic of the Academy Building during a clear-out in 1993. This silk velvet doctor’s cloak turned out to be the oldest preserved gown in the Netherlands. It was worn at a PhD ceremony during the celebration of the University’s second centenary, on February 9 1775. An old drawing made it possible to identify these gowns as PhD ceremony cloaks. Today, this antique gown is resplendent in a display case in the Academy Building.

All over the world and in every era, students pray for good results. It’s no different in Japan. This print depicts the medieval scholar and poet Sugawara no Michizane. In Japan, he is the patron saint of scholarship, and temples dedicated to him are popular places for students to pray for good grades. Japan is an important country for Leiden University; in 2017, Carel Stolker travelled to Japan with a delegation to strengthen the ties with Japanese universities.

On the Indonesian island of Enggano, the women wore a special headdress at important rituals. This hat depicts a defeated enemy. Such headgear was worn when harvesting, hunting or introducing special objects from outside the village. These objects would be displayed in the village square, and the women would dance past the houses and offer young coconuts. Special objects from outside were thought to promote fertility and creativity. Similarly, the University would wither away without outside influences.

His owner was suspected of espionage, which is why this dog moved to Leiden in the 19th century. The German physician Philipp Franz Von Siebold (1796-1866) collected information in Japan for the Dutch government, and instructed the Japanese in Western medicine. In addition to his dog Sakura (the name means ‘cherry blossom’), brought with him a large collection of plants, animals, and art and utilitarian objects. The Hortus received many bulbs and seeds, while the University Library acquired books and maps. Siebold’s former home at Rapenburg 19, where Sakura also lived, has served as the Japan Museum since 2005.

In Suriname, rice is more than food alone. Rice plants were also used during ancestral rites. Ethnobotanist and Professor Tine van Andel has spent the past few years researching the rice plant in the photo. Genetic analysis showed that the seeds of this plant originate from Ivory Coast, and were brought by enslaved Africans. Colonialism and slavery prove to play a role even with an apparently ‘neutral’ plant. Van Andel advocates the ‘decolonisation’ of collections: digitisation makes research material available to the countries of origin.

A special antique photo. The crown prince of Yogyakarta, Pangeran Adipati Anom Amengkoenegoro, walks arm-in-arm with TJ Halbertsma, the assistant Commissioner of Yogyakarta. They are welcomed by a group of Indonesian and European officials. The University Library has a few early photographs of the Kraton, as the next photo illustrates.

The present Sultan of Yogyakarta, Hamengku Buwono X, is extremely interested in the early pictures of the Kraton. These antique photos are helping restore the palace to its former glory. During a visit to Indonesia in June 2019, Carel Stolker and Kurt De Belder, Director of Leiden University Libraries, presented the Sultan with a number of these photos. The family has a special bond with Leiden. Hamengku Buwono IX, the father of the present Sultan, spent three years studying Law in Leiden. He returned home prematurely, in 1939, because of the threat of war.

Classifications are not just lists of species; they reflect a person’s theories about natural diversity. Herbarium director Willem Suringar (1832-1898) paid considerable attention to the development of a system for this Caribbean cactus genus. Naturalis has 155 boxes of Suringar’s melon cacti. He identified 80 different species here. Nowadays, some scientists see 40 species, while others see only one. Apparently, science is never finished. It just depends what criteria the scientist uses.

Royal visit to the Hortus: Queen Máxima opens the new tropical greenhouse with Carel Stolker. The renovation has made the greenhouses more suitable for research. The Hortus was founded in 1590 and is one of the oldest botanical gardens in Western Europe. It is one of the few academic gardens where scientific research is still being conducted and new plants still being planted. ‘The Hortus is not just an experimental garden for the University; it is a garden for the whole city,’ said Carel Stolker at the opening.

A dress with many layers. This recently created Territory Dress has been fashioned from maps of the United Kingdom, the Caribbean, Indonesia, Suriname and the Netherlands, visualising themes such as colonialism, globalisation and the relationships between past, present and future. Colonialism is studied in many ways at the university, in disciplines ranging from Law to History.

An anatomical model of a heart or photographs of strong women in the family. The 14 new portraits of female professors in the Senate Chamber incorporate both personal influences and research motifs. Until March 2018, professor of Greek Sophia Antoniadis was the only woman with a portrait in the Senate Chamber. High time for a change, the Executive Board decided. ‘The place where so many women defend their thesis should be inspiring and representative,’ Carel Stolker commented at the unveiling.

Whether it be face-to-face or via tweets and vlogs, Carel Stolker enjoys talking to students. And if necessary, he would also reprimand them, for example after a party got out of hand during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this respect, he is part of a long tradition. As early as the 17th century, the Rector was directly responsible for the welfare of the students.

The last year of Carel Stolker‘s rectorship was a crisis year. Coronavirus required drastic measures. For a person who enjoys an informal chat, this must have been hard. The teaching, inaugural lectures and PhD ceremonies continued as much as possible possible, in a hybrid form. After eight intense and special years, the time has come to hand over the chain of office.

A new board will be installed on 8 February 2021. Professor Annetje Ottow will be the new President, Martijn Ridderbos will remain as Vice-Chairman and Hester Bijl will be the new Rector Magnificus. The University will enter a new phase in its long history.