Mountain of Mercy

At the site of the English Warehouses (1561) in Venusstraat numbers 11, 13, and 15, the Flemish painter and architect Wenceslas Cobergher established a pawnshop, a so-called 'Mountain of Mercy', modeled after the Italian example (Monte di Pietà) in the 17th century. These were public credit institutions where you could pawn items in exchange for a sum of money. If the owner – after a relatively short period – could not repay this amount at 12 to 15%, their property would be sold publicly. Between 1618 and 1633, Cobergher opened at least 15 of these Mountains of Mercy. In 1804, a godhouse with 9 houses was built behind the Mountain. After the abolition of the Mountain of Mercy in 1946, the buildings were thoroughly renovated - preserving the historic facades. From 1956 until the commissioning of the Felix warehouse in 2006, the buildings served as the city archive. Thanks to the eight-story archive tower, about 13 km of archive could be housed. These buildings may not be so remarkable in terms of architecture, but they are notable for a number of fragments such as the portals, the patterns, the symbols, and the layout that was very simple and practical for that period.

padre jeannot