Bruce Willsie, Class of 1986, donated this collection of 155 engravings from the Geschichtsblätter (History Sheets) published between 1570 and 1610 by the Cologne printmakers and publishers Franz Hogenberg and his son Abraham. The theme is the Eighty Years War (1568–1648), also known as the Dutch Revolt. During this period, the northern provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands broke free from Spanish rule to form the Dutch Republic while the Spanish Crown maintained its hold on the southern provinces of Flanders and Brabant. The Eighty Years War was far more than a merely regional event and its last three decades coincided with the Thirty Years War. It was also entwined with the Religious Wars in France and dynastic disputes in England that were partly fought out on Netherlandish battlegrounds. The third sub-series of the Geschichtsblätter, for example, depicts events of the French Religious Wars (1559–1573) while the fourth series shows events in France as well as in England.