Where Diamond Deals Meet Baroque Dreams
You stand at the edge of the River Scheldt, where a mythical giant once terrorized sailors and a hero answered with a severed hand. That legend gave this city its name \u2014 hand werpen, to throw a hand.
For seven centuries, Antwerp has been a city of audacious ambition. Rubens painted masterpieces in his palatial studio. Printers at the Plantin Press shaped the mind of Europe. Diamond cutters in narrow streets polished 84% of the world\u2019s rough gems. And all the while, guild masters raised gilded facades on the Grote Markt as if to say: we built this, and it\u2019s magnificent.
"Antwerp is owed by each and every nation, because no nation is represented there by less than its finest citizens."
\u2014 Lodovico Guicciardini, 1567