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IN SEARCH OF UTOPIA 1516 Leuven, M - Museum Leuven, 20 October 2016 - 17 January 2017 2016 will witness the 500th anniversary of the first publication of Thomas More's Utopia in Leuven. More, humanist, statesman, and ambassador of Henry VIII of England, had his book published at the renowned printing house established by Dirk Martens in the university town - Erasmus acted as go-between. Utopia is, without doubt, the most influential new book ever published not merely in Leuven but in the whole of the Low Countries. More coined the word 'Utopia' himself. Derived from the ancient Greek it means 'not-place' or 'Nowhereland'. To mark the quincentenary of this milestone in Europe's intellectual and cultural history the City of Leuven and University of Leuven are mounting a major exhibition: In Search of Utopia. It takes as its starting point a concrete fact in Leuven's history - the printing, in 1516, of the first edition of Utopia. But the exhibition ranges far beyond that to explore the European fascination with the universe, with the globe, its parts and its inhabitants, and to delve into man's dream of an ideal world.