Editing Collegium Trilingue (section)

===17th and 18th centuries===
In the early 17th  century, the Collegium Trilingue was in a deplorable state, despite the appointment of the eminent humanist scholar and philologist [[Justus Lipsius]] to the Latin chair in 1592.{{cn|date=October 2021}}

A new period of prosperity started when Adrianus Baecx was appointed president in 1606, although the college would never again have the same status as during the early 16th century. Baecx had the buildings of the college restored, and he succeeded in filling the chairs of Greek and Hebrew, which had been vacant ever since the turmoil of the 1580s and 1590s.{{cn|date=October 2021}}

Baecx' new Hebrew professor, [[Valerius Andreas]] (1588–1655), was one of the very best Hebraists ever to have taught in the college. The teaching of Latin was put into the competent hands of [[Erycius Puteanus]] (1547–1646), a student of [[Justus Lipsius|Lipsius]], who enjoyed an international reputation for his rhetorical skill and pedagogical insight. Puteanus was appointed in 1607, and he held the Latin chair for nearly forty years; he was eventually succeeded by [[Nicolaus Vernulaeus]] (1583–1649) in 1646.{{cn|date=October 2021}} 

Vernulaeus taught Latin until his death in 1649. Not averse to self-adulation, Vernulaeus emphasized in his ''Academia Lovaniensis'' (1627) that since its foundation in 1517 the Collegium Trilingue had managed to produce first-rung figures in each and every branch of intellectual inquiry.{{cn|date=October 2021}}

After the days of Puteanus and Vernulaeus, the college entered a period of decline. There were occasional resurgences, but they were scarce and usually also short-lived, being due to the activities of one professor specifically. Worthy of mention in this regard is Johannes Gerardus Kerkherderen (1677–1738), who taught Latin in the second quarter of the 18th century, as well as [[Jean-Noël Paquot]] (1722–1803).{{cn|date=October 2021}} 

Paquot taught Hebrew, and authored the monumental ''Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire littéraire des dix-sept provinces des Pays-Bas, de la principauté de Liège, et de quelques contrées voisines'' (1763–1770, 18 vols.), which to this day is an important source of information regarding the history of the Collegium Trilingue, which survived, but did not flourish.{{cn|date=October 2021}}

The Latin chair remained vacant after 1768, and along with the university the Collegium Trilingue was suspended in 1797 during the period of unrest that followed the outbreak of the [[French Revolution]] in 1789. The buildings that constituted the college were sold, and after the reinstatement of the university in 1834 the college was never revived.{{cn|date=October 2021}}

In the early 20th century, the rector of the [[Catholic University of Leuven (1834–1968)|University of Louvain]], [[Paulin Ladeuze]], envisaged bringing the buildings of the former college into the possession of the university and turn them into a center of humanist studies once again, but these attempts, during the financially challenging period around the First World War, ultimately proved unsuccessful.{{cn|date=October 2021}} 

The 1970s witnessed a second attempt at revival, which did not materialize either.{{cn|date=October 2021}} 

During this later period, the buildings of the once-celebrated college served as a social house, printing establishment, ice factory and fish smokehouse, among other things.{{cn|date=October 2021}}