I was looking for places to visit on a recent trip to Antwerp, and the Museum Plantin-Moretus came up in an online search. It seemed to be about an Antwerp printing company, and the information contained several references to it housing a variety of large book collections. Being more interested in the writing and reading of books, I was less-enthused about the printing of them, but decided to give it a go, since the tourist reviews were very good. I'm really glad I did! What I discovered wasn't just a homage to the early days of printing, but a fascinating story about the vision of an early Antwerp entrepreneur and the contribution he made to both the history of printing and the creation of a stable and secure future for his family.
Plantin Arrives in Antwerp
Christophe Plantin didn't start life in Antwerp. He was actually born in France, probably near Tours, in about 1520. After a bookbinding apprenticeship and a small business venture in Paris, Plantin and his wife relocated to Antwerp, which at the time was a booming entrepreneurial city with much more potential for the couple's plans. Their large property at Vrijdagmarkt 22 became the centre of their family and business world, and now houses the Plantin-Moretus Museum.
The Plantin-Moretus Museum
When I entered a door on the corner of the Vrijdagmarkt, I had no idea of the scale of the house waiting inside. Its huge expanse is hidden from the street. The residential part of the house includes the living rooms and a luxurious library. They illustrate, to museum visitors, the success of Plantin's business. On entering the first two rooms of the museum, I discovered portraits of different members of the Plantin - and later Plantin-Moretus - family on the walls, alongside furniture and trimmings of his day.
Following the route, I next found myself in an enclosed courtyard garden. The size of the house now became even more apparent, as it surrounds the garden on four sides. The garden is landscaped in a formal style and is simple, not ornate, but it creates a beautiful suntrap. Here, members of the Plantin family could relax in private, undisturbed by people walking by in the street.
However, as I walked deeper and deeper into the Plantin-Moretus house, the more the ingenuity of Plantin and his descendants became apparent. Not only was this their family home, but it was also the heart of their printing business. The business was hugely successful, employing the many staff who were needed in order to follow the various steps of the printing process, from hand-made fonts to the finished text.
The Foundry
Plantin bought his letter sets from contemporary designers such Granjon, Garamont and van den Keere. Many of these formed the basis for fonts that are used today. For example, the Modern Times Roman font is based on Granjon's work. However, Plantin also bought the punches and matrices which were used to make the letter sets. This prevented other printers from using them, so giving him ownership of the typeset materials and making his letter types completely exclusive. In the foundry, skilled metal workers could repair and replace typeset for the busy printing workshop, using processes which actually survived right into the twentieth century.
The Typeset Room
Before arriving in the room where everything came together - the printing room - I stopped in the typeset room. This room houses specially-made shelving which holds the many different sets of type that Plantin's business required, depending on the subject matter and design of each book. This storage was an efficient way to organise, separate and easily find each typeset, keeping this important part of the printing process away from the hustle and bustle of the printing room itself.
The Printing Room
Imagine the noise! The printing presses would be creaking and clattering over and over again as the printers worked to fulfil the company's orders. At the height of Plantin's business, he owned twenty-two presses and employed over eighty people. A huge operation for the time! The printing room is long and narrow. On one side are examples of the printing presses. On the other are rows and rows of typeset, so visitors can see examples of the type choices Plantin used, but in its heyday, every available space in this room would have been given over to the printing machinery.
The Office
Plantin's office, which was also used by subsequent owners and managers, is devoid of the grandeur and size one might expect for a successful CEO. It is surprisingly small, plain and functional. Was Plantin simply being practical, taking only the space he needed and nothing more, and giving every possible space to the needs of the printing work? However, instead of inviting customers into a large and opulent office, Plantin used the decoration on the office walls as a symbol of his status. They are completely covered in decorated leather tiles, which were a luxury at the time that only the very wealthy could afford, and this showed customers the financial strength of Plantin's company..
The Proofreading Room
In this room, employees sat together around a table to check the printed text before it could be delivered to customers or put in the shop for sale. It's in this room that Plantin's dual plan for business and family is illustrated. Plantin's five daughters - Marguerite, Martina, Catherine, Madeleine and Henrica - were all educated from an early age and expected to work. At a time when women were generally taught only housekeeping skills, and destined to become wives and mothers within marriage arrangements which were often used for political or financial gain, Plantin employed his daughters in his printing business. This decision not only benefited his business but also gave the girls opportunities which were unusual for the time. One of their tasks was working in the proofreading room. As one person read each text aloud, others followed it in print and looked for errors. This was no mean feat. Many of the texts were printed in several languages, including Latin.
The Bookshop
As reading skills developed and the reading population increased, there was more and more demand for books. Plantin's company premises wasn't just a factory. It also contained a shop in which customers could browse through the various books on offer. After all the planning, typesetting, printing and proofreading, this is where Plantin's books were made available to prospective buyers.
In the photo of the shop bookshelves (left), you can see that all the books look exactly the same; there are no spines with titles on them to identify an individual book. This is because only the internal content of the books was sold here. Customers then had to go on to a bookbinding company to have the covers and spines added to them. This was common practice in the world of early book publishing.
Because Plantin printed books in many academic fields, there must have been some interesting conversations going on at the bookshop counter!
Books everywhere!
Plantin's success in business was not confined to Antwerp, or even to Belgium. He secured contracts to publish maps, bibles, botanical books, medical and other educational books, sheet music, calendars and almanacs which were delivered to locations across the world. Over fifty per cent of scientific books of the time were being printed by his company. Walking through the museum, its possible to see many of these original books, organised by subject, and either contained in bookshelves or in the many glass display cases.
Printing the Bible
The Pope gave his personal seal of approval to Plantin's bibles (see left), and Plantin insisted on printing bibles in five languages - Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Old Syriac - so that scholars could experience bible study in all its original forms. As with the education of his daughters, this decision illustrates how Plantin was not just a businessman, but that he also felt strongly about people having access to education and knowledge.
Plantin's Legacy
At the end of the museum tour, the final room gives an indication of the scale of what Plantin created. The busts on the walls are all of descendants of the family. When Plantin died, the business was passed on to his son-in-law, Jan Moretus. In total, the house and printing business at the Vrijdagmarkt became home and workplace for nine generations of the Plantin-Moretus family, until it was sold to the city of Antwerp in 1876. Plantin's descendants had the foresight to keep all the books, typeset and equipment spanning over three hundred years of printing, and the city of Antwerp immediately made this collection available to the public and to scholars alike. In 2005, the museum was inscribed onto the UNESCO World Heritage list for its contribution to printing history.
I'm really glad I took the time to visit the Plantin-Moretus Museum. It proved to be a fascinating insight into one man's vision not only as an entrepreneur, but as someone who valued education and the newly-developing written word for his family and for the wider reading public.
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The Plantin-Moretus Museum is located at:
Vrijdagmarkt 22,
2000 Antwerp,
Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)3 221 14 50
Go to the museum's website for all visitor information:
https://museumplantinmoretus.be
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