21 September 2024 till 2 March 2025

Leiden Celebrates - 450 Years of Parades

Celebrating together is of all times. Parades are the perfect form for that. They create togetherness and a shared identity. When society changes, parades change with it - for example, from elitist to democratic, from divided to united or vice versa. This makes parades a mirror of society. With the exhibition Leiden Celebrates - 450 years of Parades, Museum De Lakenhal, together with the city and the university, celebrates Leiden's rich tradition in this field - a tradition that is still alive and kicking. We also look ahead to the future.

Leiden as a parade city

Nowhere else in our country has the genesis of the Netherlands been celebrated as exuberantly as in Leiden. Ever since Leiden's Relief on October 3, 1574 and the founding of the university on February 8, 1575, parades have been organized in the city. With the exhibition Leiden Celebrates - 450 Years of Parades we look back on this rich history.

From archer parades to folk festival

In the exhibition you will discover what developments these parades have gone through in Leiden over the centuries: from the military and theatrical parades by archers and rhetoricians in the early modern period and the student masquerades in the nineteenth century to the tattoo today. We also look ahead: what will the parade of the future look like?

Walking through four and a half centuries of history

The exhibition brings together eloquent objects and images of parades from all eras. With paintings, meters-long prints, photographs, films, costumes and attributes, we show how grand these celebrations were and are handled. Visitors walk through four and a half centuries of Leiden parades history.

Cooperation partners

Universiteit Leiden | 3 October Vereeniging | Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken | Sociëteit Minerva | Theater Instituut Nederland