Simon Stevin

This guide to the Simon Stevin statue in Bruges opens with an odd fact about its own unveiling in eighteen forty-six: the crowd cheered a figure that was only painted plaster, since the real bronze by sculptor Eugene Simonis was not ready. It follows Stevin himself, born here around fifteen forty-eight to an unmarried couple, who left Catholic Bruges for the Protestant Dutch Republic to invent the decimal point and work for Prince Maurice of Nassau. You'll hear how Belgium's revolution of eighteen thirty dug his memory back up, and how Catholic critics and liberal supporters fought over whether a man who served the Protestant Dutch deserved a statue at all. Look closely at what his bronze hand is pointing toward before you move on.