Ghent - Famous People

Famous People

See also: Notable people from Ghent
  • Saint Bavo, patron saint of Ghent (589–654)
  • Saint Livinus of Ghent, (580–657)
  • Henry of Ghent, scholastic philosopher (c. 1217–1293)
  • Jacob van Artevelde, statesman and political leader (c. 1290–1345)
  • John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (1340–1399)
  • Jan van Eyck, painter (c. 1385–1441)
  • Hugo van der Goes, painter (c. 1440–1482)
  • Jacob Obrecht, composer of the Renaissance (c. 1457–1505)
  • Pedro de Gante, Franciscan missionary in Mexico (c. 1480–1572)
  • Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Karel V, Charles Quint (1500–1558)
  • Cornelius Canis, composer of the Renaissance, music director for the chapel of Charles V in the 1540s–1550s
  • Daniel Heinsius, scholar of the Dutch Renaissance (1580–1655)
  • Caspar de Crayer, painter (1582–1669)
  • Josse Boutmy, composer, organist and harpsichordist (1697–1779)
  • Frans de Potter, writer, (1834–1904)
  • Jan Frans Willems, writer (1793–1846)
  • Joseph Guislain, physician (1797–1860)
  • Hippolyte Metdepenningen, lawyer and politician (1799–1881)
  • Louis XVIII of France was exiled in Ghent during the Hundred Days in 1815
  • Charles John Seghers, Jesuit clergyman and missionary (1839–1886)
  • Victor Horta, Art Nouveau architect (1861–1947)
  • Maurice Maeterlinck, poet, playwright, essayist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1862–1949)
  • Frans Rens, writer, (1805–1874)
  • Leo Baekeland, chemist and inventor of Bakelite (1863–1944)
  • Pierre Louÿs, poet and romantic writer (1870–1925)
  • Marthe Boël, feminist (1877–1956)
  • Karel van de Woestijne, writer (1878–1929)
  • Corneille Jean François Heymans, physiologist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1892–1968)
  • Gustave Van de Woestijne, painter (1881–1947)
  • Suzanne Lilar, essayist, novelist, and playwright (1901–1992)
  • Jean Daskalidès, gynecologist and founder of Leonidas chocolates (1922–1992)
  • Willy De Clercq, liberal politician and European Commissioner (1927–2011)
  • Jacques Rogge, International Olympic Committee President (1942–)
  • Marc Mortier, first CEO (1986–2002) of Flanders Expo (1948–2004)
  • Gabriel Ríos, musician
  • Cédric Van Branteghem, sprinter athlete
  • Soulwax, electronic/rock band: brothers David and Stephen Dewaele
  • Xavier Henry, shooting guard for the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies
  • Bradley Wiggins, British cyclist

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Famous quotes containing the words famous and/or people:

    “When I was bound apprentice, in famous Lincolnshire,
    Full well I served my master for more than seven year,
    Till I took up poaching, as you shall quickly hear:
    Oh, ‘tis my delight on a shining night, in the season of the year.”
    —Unknown. The Lincolnshire Poacher (l. 1–4)

    “Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilised people is poetical.”
    —Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)