Louvain or Leuven was in Brabant in the Netherlands, but is taken as belonging to the Flemish tradition of instrument making. An important university founded in 1423 helped to create the climate where an instrument workshop was founded in about 1530 and flourished through much of the century, directed at first by the cartographer Gerard Mercator in association with the mathematician and physician Gemma Frisius, and later by Gemma's 'nephew' Gualterus Arsenius. The Louvain workshop benefited from political links to Spain and throughout the Habsburg empire, and its products became known through much of Europe.
