20 Euro - Philippe KU Leuven - UC Louvain

Issued to mark the 600th anniversary of the Catholic University of Leuven, founded in 1425 by papal bull of Martin V, making it one of the oldest continuously operating universities in the world. The institution survived suppression under French Revolutionary rule, a forced split into separate Dutch- and French-language universities in 1968, and two World Wars — including the deliberate burning of its library by German forces in 1914, destroying over 300,000 volumes.

The 1968 linguistic division produced KU Leuven in Flanders and UCLouvain relocated to the newly built city of Louvain-la-Neuve, which is why this coin acknowledges both institutions.