KBR Museum Opens Inside Belgium's Royal Library

A new museum, the KBR Museum, opens within the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels, housed in the late-Gothic Saint George's Chapel (Cappella di Nassau), the sole surviving architectural remnant of the Nassau family palace. The museum showcases the library's collection of over 900 manuscripts assembled by the Dukes of Burgundy, who ruled Flanders from 1348 to 1482. The collection spans medieval thought—literature, history, science, religion, philosophy, law, poetry, and chivalric romances—with works dating from the 13th century to the end of the feudal era. Notable manuscripts include the Peterborough Psalter, Histoires de Charles Martel, Roman de Girart de Nevers, and Croniques et Conquestes de Charlemagne, considered among the world's 50 most important manuscripts. The exhibition highlights the work of little-known miniaturists, comparable in talent to famed Flemish painters like Van Eyck, and explains the book-making process: binding, materials, copying, and illumination. Meanwhile, 213 manuscripts from the collection are already viewable online at belgica.kbr.be/belgica.