Disappeared Sint-Elisabethgasthuis

At the time of Bruegel there was the Sint-Elisabethgasthuis. Exactly where this guest house was located is not known. But this place near the Hof van Lierde, could have been a possible location (source Histoforum.net). It is believed that Pieter Bruegel was inspired by the blind and people with eye diseases who were treated in this hospice for his painting "Parable of the Blind". The ditch in which the blind unfortunately end up may be the Pedebeek. More doubtful, but certainly not impossible, is the assumption that the building on the far right of the painting would be the disappeared Sint-Elisabethgasthuis. Bruegel would not have seen blind people wandering around by chance. Pieter Bruegel painted the "Parable of the Blind", with such precision of the various eye diseases that he studied them very closely. And that might have been in this neighborhood.

Most likely, the guesthouse was destroyed by the troops of Louis XIV who caused a lot of destruction here between 1688 and 1697 (they destroyed, among other things, the Neerhof and the water castle of Dilbeek, they set fire to the Grand Place of Brussels ...).

Dromos