Minister-President Jambon heads to Rome for audience with Pope Francis

Flanders' Minister-President Jan Jambon has left Belgium for a three day visit to Rome. On the schedule: visits to the Belgian ambassadors to Italy and the Holy See, meetings with two highly placed cardinals, and an audience with Pope Francis. 

The highlight of Jambon's visit to Italy will be the audience with the Pope on Wednesday morning. He will take part in the weekly public audience as part of the Prima Fila. The Minister-President will have time for a short conversation with the Pope, after which a DVD with music written by Franco-Flemish composer Josquin des Prez will be gifted.

The music of Josquin des Prez is one of the central themes of the visit to Rome. The composer was born in Haunait in the fifteenth century, and is widely known as one of the most innovative composers of his time.

Afterwards, the party will meet with Cardinal Mendonça, head of the Vatican Library and the Apostolic Archives. There the party will discuss Flemish music manuscripts and the so called 'Flandes' archives - a collection of 200 000 pages that describe Flanders under Spanish rule in the 15th and 16th century - that are safeguarded by the Vatican. The KU Leuven is interested in digitizing these documents, currently hidden in the Apostolic Archives.

To end the visit to The Vatican, the Minister-President will take part in a meeting with Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State. Meetings with Pierre-Emmanuel De Bauw, Belgian ambassador to Italy, and a visit of the embassy of Belgium to the Holy See are also on the agenda.

Jambon will be accompanied on his trip by Luc Sels, rector of KU Leuven, and Bart Demuyt en Bart De Moor, respectively the managing director and chairman of the Alamire Foundation. Alamire is an international study center, founded in collaboration with KU Leuven, that studies music and music life in the Netherlands from the Middle Ages to 1800 with state-of-the-art techniques.

© BELGA PHOTO DIRK WAEM