Antwerp - Plantin-Moretus Museum

The "Second Plantin Room". Among the exhibits is an edition of the famous "Biblia Regia".

Room 3 contains manuscripts from the ninth to the 16th century including an edition of the Chronicle of Jean Froissart, written in the 15th C., and the Bohemian bible of 1401/02 belonging to King Wenceslas.

Room 24 is a celebration of the art of printing in Europe as a whole, the jewel in the crown being a 36-line Gutenberg Bible.

Room 7 is devoted to the history of books and the processes involved in their production, from the earliest forms of writing and development of the alphabet - exhibits include important archaeological finds and manuscripts - to Johannes Gutenberg and the invention of letterpress printing using movable type. Later developments in printing technology are also featured, culminating in the phototypesetting of today.

The humanist scholar Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) was a close friend of the family, often working in this room. The walls are hung with rare gold 16th C. Spanish leather.

This is a room to delight any bibliophile, housing the Max Horn Collection of rare books from the 16th to 18th C.

Room 18 is principally devoted to the Moretus family. One of the books on display contains the earliest known European illustration of a potato plant (1588).

Having set up as a printer in 1549, Christophe Plantin (1520-89) transferred his print-works lock, stock and barrel to his new home when he moved to the Vrijdagmarkt in 1576. After his death the business carried on more or less unchanged under his son-in-law and successor Jan Moerentorf/Moretus, and subsequently the latter's family. The print-works with its 16 presses was by far the largest in the Europe of the day. Plantin's greatest masterpiece was the eight-volume "Biblia Regia", or "Biblia Polyglotta", in five languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syrian and Aramaic, over 1,500 copies of which were produced in the workshop. The most distinguished member of the Plantin-Moretus family proved to be Jan's son Balthazar who, on many occasions between 1613 and 1637, employed Rubens as an illustrator. From the mid 17th C. onwards the printing house concentrated almost exclusively on missals and prayer books, Philip II having earlier granted Plantin a monopoly in the printing of liturgical books throughout the Spanish empire. When in 1800 the Spanish government finally withdrew this privilege, printing operations ceased, resuming only intermittently thereafter.

Antwerp's civic collection of copperplate engravings (Prentenkabinett) is housed next door to the museum at Vrijdagmarkt 23. Access is for purposes of research only.

The tour of the house covers 34 rooms. Videos in several different languages recounting the story of the Plantin-Moretus family and the history of printing are shown in one of the ground floor rooms reached via the courtyard.

A short guide to the museum is included in the price of entry.

The print-works, the core of the old family business, has a total of eight printing presses on display.

Room 9 is the proof-readers' room. Original proof-correction sheets dating back to the 16th and 17th C. can be seen on the desks.

Peter Paul Rubens had a close association with the Moretus family. Here his work as an illustrator is recorded.

The type foundry was originally set up in the 17th C. The various processes used in the manufacture of metal printing-types are displayed.