Ghent Town Hall and Belfry

One part of the Town Hall is ornate Gothic whilst the other is a beautiful Renaissance building.

The Pacification of Ghent was signed here on 8 November 1576 and was an alliance of the provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands for the purposes of driving out mutinying Spanish mercenary troops from the country. It was also a peace treaty with the rebellious Calvinist provinces of Holland and Zeeland.

The problem with the Pacification was that the provinces agreed on little else than the need to be rid of the Spanish mutineers. So when three years later the Duke of Parma as Philip II Governor-Generla of the Netherlands offered the southern Catholic nobles their privileges back, they no longer had reasons to rebel along-side the Calvinist north.

The therefore resulted in the Union of Arras where the French catholic south concluded their union, and the Union of Utrecht by the Dutch calvinist north. The Habsburg Netherlands had divided broadly on linguistic and religious lines.

The Belfry in the background is 91metres tall and was constructed between 1313 and 1380. It is surmounted by a golden dragon.