Niiiii^tiSjiiaiiA 
 
 PLANTIN 
 AND THE 
 PLANTIN- 
 MORETUS 
 MUSEUM 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/christopherplantOOdevirich 
 
The Publication Committee of the Grolier Club certify 
 that this is one of three hundred copies on paper, and of 
 three copies on vellum, of a special edition of "Christo- 
 pher Plantin and the Plantin-Moretus Museum," in the 
 form of a broad octavo, all of which were printed in 
 the month of December, 1888. 
 
CHRISTOPHER PLANTIN 
 
 AND 
 
 THE PLANTIN-MORETUS MUSEUM 
 
 AT ANTWERP 
 
 BY 
 
 THEO. L. DE VINNE 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOSEPH PENNELL, AND OTHERS 
 
 FEINTED FOR THE GROLIER CLUB 
 NEW-YORK 
 
 1888 
 
Copyright by Theodore L. De Vinne, 1888. 
 
 By permission of The Century Co. 
 
CHRISTOPHER PLANTIN. 
 ( Reproduced from an Eitgruving by Henri OoltziuB.) 
 
CHRISTOPHER PLANTIN AND THE 
 PLANTIN-MORETUS MUSEUIVI 
 
 HE modem printing-office 
 is not at all picturesque. 
 Whether it be old, with 
 grimy hand-presses and 
 dingy types, or new, with 
 huge iron machines and 
 long lanes of cases and 
 stones, it does not invite the artistic pencil. 
 Without doubt the cradle of books, but can one 
 see any poetry about the cradle ? The eye is 
 confused with strange sights ; the ear is jarred 
 with harsh noise ; the air itself is heavy with 
 odors of ink and oil and wet paper. Nor does 
 the imagination expand in the office of the 
 manager, in which the prominent objects are 
 
10 ^lantin^99orctus^ ^ii^cum. 
 
 always chairs and desks, and a litter of ragged 
 papers and well-thumbed books — all prosaic 
 and factory-like. 
 
 Was it always so? No one knows of the 
 interior of Gutenberg's office in the Zum Jimgen 
 
 Gutenberg's Office at Mayence. 
 
 house at Mayence, for no artist in his day or 
 ours has found in it any beauty to be preserved; 
 but we do know that this birthplace of a great 
 art is now a beer-shop, in which for a few 
 pfennigs one may get a refreshment for the 
 body not to be had for the mind. The fate that 
 fell on Gutenberg's office has fallen on the 
 offices of Aldus and the Stephens and the Elze- 
 
The Front of the Museum. 
 
pimxtin^ ^titttn^ a^isciim. 13 
 
 virs. Not a vestige of office fittings or working 
 material remains. 
 
 The Plantin-Moretus Museum at Antwerp is 
 the only printing-house that has been left intact 
 as the monument of a great departed business. 
 How well it was worth having may be inferred 
 from the price of twelve hundred thousand 
 francs paid for it by the city, in 1876, to the 
 last member of the family of the founder. How 
 well it is worth seeing is proved by the steady 
 tide of visitors that pass through it every day. 
 Here is a printing-house that is not a factory — 
 a house that has been as much the home of art 
 and education as a place for work and trade. 
 
 It is not an imposing structure. No public 
 building in Antwerp is more unpretentious as 
 to its exterior. Its dull front on the Marche 
 du Vendredi gives but one indication of the 
 treasures behind the walls. To him who can 
 read it, the little tablet over the door is enough 
 to tell the story ; for it is the device of Christo- 
 pher Plantin, "first printer to the king, and the 
 king of printers." Here is the hand emerging 
 from the clouds, holding a pair of compasses, 
 one leg at rest and one describing a circle; here 
 is the encircling legend of Lahore et Constantia. 
 Heraldry is overfull of devices that are as arro- 
 
14 ^imtm^^tjttni^ ^u$mm* 
 
 gant as they are absurd, but no one dare say 
 that Plantin did not fairly earn the right to use 
 the motto of labor and patience. 
 
 II 
 
 ^^^^0 LANTiN deserved remembrance from 
 Antwerp. He did much for its 
 honor, although he was not of 
 Flemish birth. Bom in France, 
 about 1514, taught printing and book-binding 
 at Caen, he should have been by right, and 
 would have been by choice, a worthy successor 
 to the printers of Paris who did admirable 
 work during the first half of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. But his most Christian Majesty Heniy 
 II. of France had begun his reign in 1547 with 
 the announcement that he should punish her- 
 esy as worse than treason. What a drag-net 
 was this word heresy for the entanglement of 
 printers ! Stephen Dolet, most promising of all, 
 had been recently burned at the stake ; Robert 
 Stephens, weary of endless quarrels with med- 
 dlesome ecclesiastics, was meditating the flight 
 
A Trade-Mark. 
 
he soon afterward made to Geneva. To those 
 who could read the signs of the times, there 
 were even then forewamings of the coming 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew. France was a 
 good country for a printer to leave, and Plantin 
 did wisely to forsake Paris in 1548 and to make 
 his home in Antwerp. 
 
 Not so large as Paris or London, Antwerp 
 was superior in wealth and commerce, as well 
 as in its artistic development. Printing was 
 under restraint here, as it was everywhere; 
 but the restraints were endurable, and printers 
 were reasonably prosperous. Antwei'p encour- 
 aged immigration. One of the most interest- 
 ing of the many paintings in its Hotel de Yille 
 is that of the ceremonious naturaUzation of an 
 Itahan and his family in the sixteenth century. 
 It was as the principal in a similar ceremony 
 that Plantin became a citizen in 1550, and was 
 enrolled as a printer. 
 
 With httle money and few friends, Plantin 
 had to struggle to keep his foot-hold in a city 
 that had already been well served by many 
 master printers. It did not appear that he was 
 needed at all as a printer. So Plantin must 
 have thought, for he avoided printing, and 
 opened a shop in which he sold prints and 
 
18 ^lantiii^sr^oretiijsf SK^ujefauti* 
 
 books, and his wife sold haberdashery. To fill 
 up unemployed time he bound books and deco- 
 rated jewel-boxes. At this work he prospered, 
 and soon earned a reputation as the most skill- 
 ful decorator in the city. Before he was fairly 
 established he met a great misfortune. En- 
 countered on a dark night by a ruffian who 
 mistook him for another, Plantin was danger- 
 ously stabbed, and forever disabled from hand- 
 ling gilding-tools. The possible rivalry that 
 might have arisen between him and the artistic 
 book-binders of Paris was effectually pre- 
 vented. He had to begin anew, but it was more 
 as a publisher than as a printer, for it is not 
 certain that in 1555 he owned a printing-office. 
 In that year he pubhshed two little books, cau- 
 tiously dividing the risk with other pubhshers. 
 It must have been difficult to get books that 
 were salable, for his first book* was in Italian 
 and French, his second in Spanish, his third in 
 French — clear evidences all that there were in 
 Antwerp already printers before him who had 
 published all the books called for in Flemish. 
 
 * "• La Institvtione di vna hundred years after his death 
 
 Fandvlla nata nobilmente.^'' It a copy of this book would be 
 
 was a small 12mo (now rated sold for more than one hun- 
 
 an 18m o). It would have dred dollars. He had to be 
 
 greatly cheered him if he content with one sou and a 
 
 could have known that three, quarter. 
 
•a h5 
 I- 
 
 « .s 
 
But Plantin went to Antwerp to stay. In 
 1556 he published four more books, two of 
 them original; in 1557 eight books, six of them 
 original; in 1558 fourteen books, many of them 
 of large size and of marked merit. The foui* 
 years that followed show steady increase in the 
 nimiber and improvement in the quahty of his 
 publications, among which were several Latin 
 classics, a Greek text, a Latin Bible, and a dic- 
 tionary in foiu' languages. 
 
 His ability was fully recognized in 1562, but 
 his business life was henceforward a succession 
 of great misfortunes as weU as of great achieve- 
 ments. By leaving Paris he did not escape, he 
 only postponed, the conflict that had begun 
 between the press, the State, and the Church. 
 The country that promised to give him hberty 
 was to become the chosen battle-field of the 
 contestants, and the result of the battle was 
 to be undecided even at his death. In 1562 
 the regent, Margaret of Parma, ordered search 
 for the unknown printer of a heretical prayer- 
 book, and it was proved that the book had 
 been printed in Plantin's printing-office. Fore- 
 warned of coming danger, Plantin escaped to 
 Paris, where he staid for twenty months. 
 When he could safely return, his business had 
 
22 C[)n0top6a: pantiii aitb tijc 
 
 been destroyed, and his printing-office, and 
 even his household property, had been sold at 
 auction to satisfy the demands of his creditors. 
 Thirteen years of labor had been lost. He was 
 down, but not to stay. 
 
 Plantin was strongly suspected of comphcity 
 in this matter of heretical printing, but he had 
 not been condemned. He overcame the preju- 
 dices, if there had been any, of ecclesiastical 
 authorities, and made them active friends for- 
 ever, although he was frequently afterward 
 denounced as a Calvinist. Four wealthy men 
 lent him money to found a printing-house, in 
 which he worked hard. At the end of the next 
 four years he had seven presses and forty work- 
 men in his employ, and had published 209 
 books. What to him was of more consequence, 
 he had established friendly relations with the 
 authorities of the State. The city of Antwerp 
 gave him special privileges as printer; the Eang 
 of Spain in 1570 made him " Prototypographe," 
 the ruler of all the printers in the city. He 
 was in correspondence with many of the great 
 scholars and artists of his time, and was by 
 them, as well as by every one, regarded as the 
 foremost printer of the world. The King of 
 France invited him to Paris; the Duke of 
 
Savoy offered to give to him a great printing- 
 house and special rewards if he would go to 
 Turin. But he kept in Antwerp, and enlarged 
 his business. He not only worked himself, but 
 made all his household help him. His daugh- 
 ters kept a book-store in the cloisters of the 
 cathedral; he established an agency in Paris 
 under the direction of his son-in-law. Grilles 
 Beys. Another son-in-law, Moretus, was his 
 chief clerk, and a regular attendant at all the 
 German book fairs, while another, Raphelen- 
 gius, was his ablest corrector of the press. 
 Even the younger daughters were required to 
 learn to read writing, and to serve as copy- 
 holders, often on books in foreign languages, 
 before they were twelve years old. 
 
 His season of greatest apparent prosperity 
 began in 1570. His printing-house was soon 
 after one of the wonders of the hterary world. 
 Twenty-two presses were kept at work, and 
 two hundred crowns in gold were required 
 every day for the payment of his workmen, 
 recites an old chronicler with awe and astonish- 
 ment. His four houses were too small. He 
 had to buy and occupy the larger property 
 which now constitutes the Plantin-Moretus 
 Museum. Before he occupied his new office 
 
24 pantin^St^ormi^ SJ^is^eum, 
 
 lie had printed the largest and most expensive 
 book then known to the world, the "Royal 
 Polyglot," eight volumes foho, in four lan- 
 guages, with full-page illustrations from cop- 
 per-plates. It was an enterprise that earned 
 him more of honor than of profit, for the 
 King of Spain, who had promised hberal help, 
 disappointed him. Plantin had incurred enor- 
 mous expenses and was harassed by creditors, 
 and had to sell or pledge his books at los- 
 ing prices. At that time the patronage of the 
 king was a hindrance, for when he was in 
 the greatest straits the king commanded him 
 to print new service books for the Church 
 that would be of great cost and of doubtful 
 profit. 
 
 The king's habitual neglect to pay his obhga- 
 tions provoked his soldiers to outrages which 
 nearly ruined Plantin. Antwerp had been for 
 years in practical mutiny against the king. To 
 repress this mutiny the citadel was filled with 
 Spanish soldiers who were furious because they 
 had not been paid, and were threatening to 
 plunder the city by way of reprisal or as com- 
 pensation. On the fourth day of November, 
 1576, when Plantin was no more than fairly set- 
 tled in his new office, the threat was executed. 
 
Jean Moretus I, son-in-law of Plantin. 
 (From a Painting by Rubens.) 
 
panting Ur^orctu-sf lH^uis^ami, 27 
 
 Joined by an army beyond the walls, and by 
 treacberous allies that the civic authorities had 
 hired as defenders, they began the sack of the 
 city. Eight thousand citizens were killed, a 
 thousand houses were burned, six milhon 
 florins' worth of property were burned, and as 
 much more was stolen, amid most atrocious 
 cruelties. The prosperity of the great city, 
 which had been the pride of Europe, received a 
 blow from which it never recovered. The busi- 
 ness of Plantin was crushed. "Nine times," he 
 said, " did I have to pay ransom to save my 
 property from destruction ; it would have been 
 cheaper to have abandoned it." But his de- 
 spondency was but for a day. In the ruins of 
 the sacked city, surrounded by savage soldiers, 
 discouraged with a faithless king who would 
 not protect his property nor pay his debts, ill 
 at ease with creditors who feared to trust him, 
 and alarmed at the absence of buyers who dared 
 not come to the city, Plantin still kept at work. 
 The remainder of his life was practically an 
 unceasing struggle with debt, but debt did not 
 make him abandon his great plans. To pay his 
 debts he often had to sell his books at too small 
 prices. Sometimes he had to sell his working- 
 tools. In 1581 he went to Paris to dispose of 
 
28 paittht^Ct^retuj^ sa^ismm. 
 
 his library, costing 16,000 francs, for less than 
 haK its value. 
 
 Rich enough in books, in tools, in promises 
 to pay, he had little of money, and slender 
 credit. The political outlook was dishearten- 
 ing. Alexander of Parma was menacing Flan- 
 ders and Brabant ; there was reason to fear a 
 siege of Antwerp and the destruction of his 
 printing-house. With the consent of his cred- 
 itors Plantin temporarily transferred his office 
 to his sons-in-law, and in 1582 went to Leyden, 
 to muse as he went on the warning, " Put not 
 your trust in princes." There he was cordially 
 received by the university, and at once ap- 
 pointed their printer. There he founded a new 
 printing-house, in which he remained for nearly 
 three years. When the siege was over, Plantin 
 returned to Antwerp, but it was never after 
 the Antwerp of his earher days. Nor was 
 Plantin himseK as active. The king had made 
 Antwerp a Cathohc city, but its commerce was 
 destroyed. 
 
 Plantin died on the first day of July, 1589, 
 and was buried in the cathedral. Although, by 
 reason of his bold undertakings, he had been 
 financially embarrassed for many years before 
 his death, he left a good estate, at least on 
 

 
 [. ^ r. f f Sill 
 
 Bust of Balthazar Moretus, in the Court-yard. 
 
paper. By a will made conjointly with his 
 wife, who soon followed him, he gave the man- 
 agement of his printing-office and most of his 
 property, then valued at 135,718 florins (equal 
 to $217,000), to his son-in-law Moretus and his 
 wife, burdened with legacies to children and 
 other heirs, with the injunction that they, at 
 their death, should bequeath the undivided 
 printing-office to the son or successor who 
 could most wisely manage it. If they had no 
 competent son, then they must select a compe- 
 tent successor out of the family. This injunc- 
 tion was fairly obeyed. Under John Moretus the 
 reputation of the house was fully maintained, 
 although the publications were not so many nor 
 so meritorious. But this falling off was large- 
 ly due to the diminished importance of Ant- 
 werp as a commercial city. His sons Balthazar 
 and John Moretus II. carried the office to the 
 highest degree of prosperity. To Balthazar I., 
 more than to any other member of the family, 
 the world is indebted for the treasures of art 
 and learning which now grace the rooms of the 
 Plantin-Moretus Museum. A very large share 
 of the prosperity of the house came from the 
 valuable patents and privileges accorded to 
 Plantin and his successors by the King of 
 
32 Pajmn^sr^rctiiJ^ a^isciuti. 
 
 Spain. For more than two hundred years they 
 were the exclusive makers of the hturgical 
 books used in Spain and its dependencies. 
 The dechne of the house began with the death 
 of Balthazar III. in 1696. During the eight- 
 eenth century it lost its preeminence as the 
 first printing-house in the world, and was sim- 
 ply a manufactory of rehgious books. In 1808 
 the special privileges they had for making these 
 books for Spain and its possessions were with- 
 drawn, and this great business of the house 
 was at an end. In 1867 it ceased to do any 
 business. 
 
 Ill 
 
 EENAED has told us, in his "Archeo- 
 logie Typographique," of the deso- 
 lation of the house as he saw it in 
 1850. Everything was in decay. 
 That the types and matrices would soon go 
 to the melting-kettle ; that books and prints, 
 furniture and pictures, would find their way, 
 bit by bit, to bric-a-brac shops ; that this old 
 glory of Antwerp would soon be a story of the 
 past — seemed inevitable. Fortunately there 
 were in Antwerp men who tried to save the 
 
J^Iantnt^ iH^mujtf a^iismm, 35 
 
 collection. Messrs. Emanuel Rosseels and Max 
 Rooses (now conservateur of the Museum), 
 under the zealous direction of M. Leopold de 
 Wael, the burgomaster of the city, induced the 
 city and the State to buy the property, the 
 transfer of which was formally made, as we 
 read from a tablet in the wall, in 1875. 
 
 The Museum, as it now stands, is not as 
 Plantin left it. His successors, Balthazar I. 
 especially, made many changes, additions, and 
 restorations, but all have been done with pro- 
 priety. The visitor is not shocked by in- 
 congruities of structure or decoration. The 
 difficult task of re-arranging the house has 
 been done with excellent taste by the architect 
 Pierre Dens. It is the great charm of the 
 Museum that the house and its contents, the 
 books, pictures, prints, windows, walls, types, 
 presses, furniture, are all in their places, and 
 with proper surroundings. They fit. To pass 
 the doorway is to take leave of the nineteenth 
 century; to put ourselves not only within the 
 walls, but to surround ourselves with the same 
 famihar objects which artists and men of let- 
 ters saw and handled two or three centuries 
 ago. Here are their chairs and tables, their 
 books and candlesticks, and other accessories 
 
36 ^Jaittm^^orctiijSf !3r^i.scum. 
 
 of every-day office and domestic life. It is a 
 new atmosphere. Standing in the vestibule 
 under a copper lamp, facing a statue of 
 Apollo, surrounded by sculptured emblems of 
 art and science, the visitor at once perceives 
 that he is in something more than a printing- 
 house — in an old school of literature. 
 
 Yet there is httle that is bookish in the first 
 salon. One's attention is first caught by the 
 httle octagonal window hghts that face the 
 inner court, bright in colors, and with com- 
 memorations of John Moretus II. and Baltha- 
 zar Moretus II. and their wives. And then 
 one has to note the heavy beams overhead, and 
 the old tapestries on the walls, the great tor- 
 toise-shell table, and the buffet of oak with its 
 queer pottery, and the still queerer painting of 
 an old street parade in Antwerp. 
 
 Over the chimney-piece in the second salon 
 is the portrait of Christopher Plantin as he 
 appeared at sixty-four years of age, wrapped in 
 a loose black robe, with a broad raff about his 
 neck — unmistakably a man of authority, and 
 of severity too. There is nothing dull, or im- 
 passive, or Dutch, about this head. He is a 
 Frenchman of the old school, — muscular, cou- 
 rageous, enduring, — a man of the type of Conde 
 
Balthazar Moretus I. 
 (After a painting in black and white by Eraenias Qaellyn.) 
 
or Coligny. Here too is Jeanne Riviere, his 
 wife. How Flemish-looking is this French- 
 woman of placid face, in her white cap and 
 quilled collar! plainly one of the grand old 
 women that Rembrandt loved to honor. The 
 portraits of some of Plantin's five daughters are 
 on the walls, but they can be seen together only 
 at the cathedral, on a panel painted by Yan den 
 Broeck. The eldest. Marguerite, was married 
 in 1565, to Francis Raphelengius.* Martine, 
 the second daughter, in 1570 married John 
 Moretus, who was Plantin's trusted man of 
 business during his life, and his heir and 
 successor. Madelaine, the fourth daughter, 
 brightest of all, in 1572 married Egidius Beys, 
 
 * The wedding festivities valued at 4 florins 2% sous, 
 lasted one week, for which red and black cherries, straw- 
 Plantin made this provision, berries, oranges, capers, olives, 
 which has a fine medieval apples, salads, and radishes 
 flavor : three sucking pigs at valued at 3 florins 8>^ sous, 
 17 sous each, six capons at 22 confectionery valued at 4 flor- 
 sous, twelve pigeons at 6 sous, ins 9 sous, two pounds of sugar- 
 twelve quails at 4 sous, five plums, one poxmd of anis, and 
 legs of mutton at 1 florin, three pounds of MUan cheese, 
 twelve sweet-breads at 7>^ The gifts to Raphelengius 
 sous the dozen, three beef amounted to 32 florins 5 sous ; 
 tongues at 8 sous, four almond to Plantin (for this was the 
 cakes, six calves' heads, three custom of the period), 90 flor- 
 legs of mutton browned, six ins 16 >^ sous. Plantin gave 
 (16-lb.) hams at 2^ sous the to his workmen on this occa- 
 pound, Rhine wine valued at sion a pot of wine valued at 
 12 florins 5 sous, red wine 7 florins. 
 
40 
 
 3^Iantm^9[^rctu^ liir^uiefmm. 
 
 who was Plantin's agent in Paris. " My first 
 son-in-law," wrote Plantin, "cares for nothing 
 but books ; my second knows nothing but busi- 
 ness." Not a kindly criticism of Moretus, who 
 was learned and wrote well in four languages; 
 but Plantin must have been well content with 
 these sons-in-law who complemented each other 
 and fully served him. Beys* was not an es- 
 teemed assistant, nor was his son. 
 
 * In 1587 the eldest son of 
 Beys, then fourteen years of 
 age, lived with his grand- 
 father. At the close of a day 
 of alleged misconduct, Plantin 
 required of him the task to 
 compose and write in Latin a 
 description of the manner in 
 which he had spent that day. 
 This is the translation: "The 
 occupations of Christophe Beys, 
 February 21, 1587. I got up 
 at half -past 6 o'clock. I went 
 to embrace my grandfather 
 and grandmother. Then I 
 took breakfast. Before 7 
 o'clock I went to my class, 
 and well recited my lesson in 
 syntax. At 8 o'clock I heard 
 mass. At half-past 8 I had 
 learned my lesson in Cicero 
 and I fairly recited it. At 11 
 o'clock I returned to the house 
 and studied my lesson in 
 phraseology. After dinner I 
 went back to the class and 
 properly recited my lesson. 
 
 At half-past 2 I had fairly 
 recited my lesson in Cicero. 
 At 4 o'clock I went to hear a 
 sermon. Before 6 o'clock I 
 returned to the house, and I 
 read a proof [held copy for] 
 Libellus Sodalitatis with my 
 cousin Francis [Raphelen- 
 gius]. I showed myself re- 
 fractory while reading the 
 proofs of the book. Before 
 supper, my grandfather hav- 
 ing made me go to him, to 
 repeat what I had heard 
 preached, I did not wish to 
 go nor to repeat ; and even 
 when others desired me to ask 
 pardon of grandfather, I was 
 unwilling to answer. Finally, 
 I have showed myself in the 
 eyes of all, proud, stubborn, 
 and wiUful. After supper I 
 have written my occupations 
 for this day, and I have read 
 them to my grandfather. The 
 end crowns the work." 
 
Jeanne Riviere and her Daughters. Jolin tluj Baptist at the top. 
 (From a Painting in the Cathedral by Van den Broeck.) 
 
Here too are the portraits of many of the 
 learned friends of Plantin. The somber face 
 of Arias Montanus, the learned confessor of 
 Phihp II., who was commissioned by the king 
 to superintend the printing of the great poly- 
 glot, glows with all the color that Rubens 
 could give. By the same painter are the por- 
 traits of Ortehus and Justus Lipsius and Pan- 
 tinus — grave, scholarly, dignified faces all. Of 
 greater attraction is the portrait, so often 
 copied, of Gevartius, the clerk of the city of 
 Antwerp. A show-case in the middle of the 
 room contains designs by Martin de Vos, Van 
 den Broeck, Van der Borcht, Van Noort, Van 
 der Horst, Rubens, Quellyn, and other illustra- 
 tors of books for the Plantin office, all famous 
 in their time. Not the least curious is Rubens' 
 bill of sale, dated 1630, to Balthazar Moretus I., 
 of 328 copies of the works of Hubert Goltzius, 
 the great archaeologist, for 4920 florins, and the 
 further sum of 1000 florins for the plates of 
 the same, payable in books. The opportunity 
 for "working off unsold remainders" was not 
 neglected. 
 
 Fronting on a side street is the old book- 
 store, with aU its furniture, including the old 
 
44 5^laimn^9[^ormi3^ iJt^uisfaim* 
 
 scales by which hght gold coin was tested. A 
 motley collection of books is on the shelves — 
 prayer-books and classic texts, amatory poems 
 and polemical theology. Posted up is a "Cata- 
 logue of Prohibited Books," a placard printed 
 by Plantin himseK in 1569, by the order of the 
 Duke of Alva. Two of the prohibited books, 
 the " Colloquies of Erasmus" and the " Psalms 
 of Clement Marot," came from the Plantin 
 press. What keen perception must have been 
 exercised to find heresy in the Psalms ! This 
 was not the only interference with the printer 
 by the law, for there is also posted a tariff 
 made by the magistrates of Antwerp, by which 
 a fixed price is made for every popular book. 
 Whoever dares sell a book at a higher price 
 is warned that he shall be fined twenty-five 
 florins. In the corner near the window is the 
 chair in which the shop-boy sat and announced 
 incoming customers to the daughters who were 
 at work in the rear of the store, from which it 
 was separated by a glazed partition. Plainly a 
 room for work and trade, but how differently 
 work and trade were done then! No doubt 
 there was enough of di'udgery, but to the 
 young women who worked in the glow of the 
 

colored glass windows, and listened to the tick- 
 ing of the tall Flemish clock, and saw above 
 them on the wall the beautiful face of a stat- 
 uette of the Madonna, hfe could not have had 
 the grimy, stony face it presents to the modem 
 shop-girl. 
 
 In an adjoining room is the salon of tapes- 
 tries, five of which represent shepherds, hunt- 
 ers, market women, dancers, — Flemish idyls 
 all. One has to make another comparison, 
 between the value of old and modem needle- 
 work, not to the credit of Berlin wools and 
 South Kensington stitches. Curious furniture 
 is in the room — a buffet on which rests fine 
 old china, wardrobes in oak and ebony, chairs 
 and tables of wonderful carving, all surmounted 
 by a chandeUer of crystal. Most interesting 
 of all is an old harpsichord with three tiers of 
 keys, on the interior of which is painted a copy 
 of Rubens' St. Ceciha. It bears the inscription, 
 " Johannes Josephus Coenen, priest and organ- 
 ist of the cathedral, made me, Roermond, 
 1735." Not at aU an old piece, — just midway 
 between Plantin's time and ours, — but how old 
 it seems by the side of a modem piano ! 
 
48 ^iamn^^ovetn^ a^ui^ciuTi, 
 
 lY 
 
 [f severer simplicity is the room of 
 the Correctors of the Press, in 
 which is a great oak table that 
 overlaps the two diamond-paned 
 windows opening on the inner coiu^t. On the 
 walls are paintings of two of the most famous 
 of Plantin's correctors — Theodore Poelman 
 and Cornelius Kihanus. Poelman is repre- 
 sented as a scholar at work on his books in a 
 small, mean room, in which his wife is spin- 
 ning thread and a fuller is at work. And this 
 was Poelman's lot in hfe : to work as a fuller 
 by day, and to correct and prepare for press 
 classic texts at night, for three or four florins 
 per volume. Kilianus was corrector for the 
 Plantin house for fifty years. Beginning as a 
 compositor in 1558, at the very modest salary 
 of five patards a day, not more (perhaps less) 
 than two dollars and forty cents a week in our 
 currency, he ultimately became Plantin's most 
 trusted general proof-reader. Not so learned 
 as Raphelengius, he was more efficient in super- 
 vising the regular work of the house. He 
 wrote good Latin verse, composed prefaces and 
 made translations for many books, and com- 
 
piled a Flemish dictionary of whicli Plantin 
 seems to have been ungenerously envious. 
 His greatest salary was but four florins a week, 
 but little more than was then paid to Plan- 
 tin's expert compositors. The most learned of 
 Plantin's regular correctors was his son-in-law 
 Raphelengius, who had been a teacher of 
 Greek at Cambridge. He began his work in 
 the Plantin office at forty florins a year and his 
 board. Montanus testified that he had thor- 
 ough knowledge of many languages, and was 
 an invaluable assistant on the Polyglot Bible. 
 His greatest salary, in 1581, was but four hun- 
 dred florins a year. As a rule editing and proof- 
 reading were done at the minimum of cost. 
 The wages paid to a scholarly reader, who 
 had entire knowledge of three or four lan- 
 guages, was about twelve florins a month. 
 Ghisbrecht, one of these correctors, agreed 
 to prepare copy for and to oversee the work 
 of six compositors for his board and sixty 
 florins a year. Besides the regular correctors 
 of the house, Plantin had occasionally some 
 volunteer or unpaid correctors, hke Montanus. 
 His friend Justus Lipsius seems to have been 
 the only editor who was fairly paid for Uter- 
 ary work. 
 
52 J^Jajttin^St^rctu^ St^ui^mm, 
 
 The printing-room does not give a just idea 
 of its old importance. What here remains is 
 as it was in 1576, but the space then occupied 
 for printing must have been very much larger. 
 Plantin's inventory, taken after his death, 
 showed that he had in Antwerp seventy-three 
 fonts of type, weighing 38,121 pounds. Now 
 seven hand-presses and their tables occupy two 
 sides of the room, and rows of type-cases and 
 stands fill the remnant of space. How petty 
 these presses seem ! How small the impression 
 surface, how rude all the apphances ! Yet 
 from these presses came the great " Royal 
 Polyglot," the Roman Missal, still bright with 
 sohd black and glowing red inks, and thousands 
 of volumes, written by great scholars, many 
 of them enriched with designs by old Flem- 
 ish masters. ^' The man is greater than the 
 machine," and Plantin was master over 
 his presses. From these uncouth unions 
 of wood and stone, pinned together with 
 bits of iron, he made his pressmen extort 
 workmanship which has been the admiration 
 of the world. 
 
 Plantin had this work done at small cost. 
 His account-books show that the average yearly 
 earnings of expert compositors were one hun- 
 
u - 
 
 X O 
 
dred and forty-two florins, and of the pressmen 
 one hundred and five florins. The eight-hour 
 law was unknown. Work began at 5 o'clock 
 in the morning, but no time is stated for its 
 ending. His rules were hard. One of them 
 was that the compositor who set three words 
 or six letters not in the copy should be fined. 
 Another was the prohibition of all discussions 
 on rehgion. Every workman must pay for his 
 entrance a hienvenne of eight sous as drink 
 money, and give two sous to the poor-box. At 
 the end of the month he must give thirty sous 
 to the poor-box and ten sous to his comrades. 
 This hienvenue was as much an English as a 
 Flemish custom, as one may see in Frankhn's 
 autobiography. 
 
 The presses cost about fifty florins each. 
 In one of his account-books is the record that 
 he paid forty-five florins for copper platens to 
 six of his presses. This is an unexpected dis- 
 covery. It shows that Plantin knew the value 
 of a hard impression surface, and made use of 
 it three centuries before the printer of TJie Cen- 
 tury tried, as he thought for the first time, the 
 experiment of iron and brass impression sur- 
 faces for inelastic impression. 
 
56 ^m\tm^^otmi^ Sr^usciun, 
 
 The proportion of readers or correctors to 
 compositors was large. In 1575 Plantin had, 
 besides Raphelengius and Moretus, five correct- 
 ors for twenty-four compositors, thirty-nine 
 pressmen, and four apprentices. Much of the 
 work done by these correctors was really edit- 
 ing, translating, re-writing, and preparing copy. 
 With all these correctors, proof-reading proper 
 was not too well done. Ruelens notes in Plan- 
 tin's best work, the "Royal Polyglot," one hun- 
 dred and fifteen errors of paging in the eight 
 foho volumes. Yet this book was supervised 
 by Montanus and Raphelengius, and in some 
 portions by eminent scholars and professors of 
 the Leyden University. 
 
 To enable him to publish this polyglot with 
 parallel texts in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and 
 Chaldee, Plantin got Granvelle and other ec- 
 clesiastics to recommend it to the king and 
 get from him a subvention. Plantin's first 
 estimate for the six volumes which he then 
 thought enough for the work was 24,000 flor- 
 ins, exclusive of the cost of new types and 
 binding. After much dehberation the king 
 consented to advance 6000 ducats, for which 
 he was to receive an equal value in books at 
 
The Press-room. 
 
trade rates. But the work grew on Plantin's 
 hands; it made eight volumes instead of six, 
 and it cost 100,000 crowns before it was com- 
 pleted. Twelve hundred copies on paper were 
 printed and announced to the trade in the style 
 of the modem Parisian pubhsher. 
 
 10 on grand imperial paper of Italy. . . .price not stated 
 
 30 on grand imperial, at the price of 200 florins 
 
 200 on the fine royal paper of Lyons 100 florins 
 
 960 on the fine royal paper of Troyes 70 florins 
 
 The king had twelve copies on vellum, 
 which required more skins than could be had 
 in Antwerp or Holland. It is of interest to 
 note that Plantin, like all printers, had no 
 enthusiasm for vellum. To an apphcation 
 from a German prince who asked for a copy on 
 vellum, Plantin answered that none could be 
 furnished, but that the copies on the imperial 
 Itahan paper were really better printed than 
 those on the vellum. In the matter of clean, 
 clear printing they were every way better. 
 
 This "Eoyal Polyglot" was the beginning 
 of Plantin's financial troubles, from which he 
 never fairly recovered. The king would not 
 allow the work to be pubhshed until it had 
 
60 ^imtm^^otttn^ !3l^ij^mm» 
 
 been approved by the pope, who refused his 
 consent. Montaniis went to Rome to plead for 
 a change of decision; but it was not until 1573, 
 when a new pope was in the chair, that this 
 permit was granted. Even then the difficulties 
 were not over. A Spanish theologian de- 
 nounced the work as heretical, Judaistic, the 
 product of the enemies of the Church. Then 
 the Inquisition made a slow examination, and 
 grudgingly decided in 1580 that it might be 
 lawfully sold. For more than seven years the 
 unhappy book was under a cloud of doubt as to 
 its orthodoxy. The damage to Plantin was 
 severe. Before he reached the concluding vol- 
 umes his means were exhausted, and he had to 
 mortgage at insufficient prices two-thirds of the 
 copies done. The king was fully repaid in 
 books for all money he had advanced, but 
 Plantin got no more. With the generosity of 
 people who are accustomed to give what does 
 not belong to them, the king granted Plantin 
 an annual pension of four hundred florins, 
 secured on a confiscated Dutch estate ; but the 
 perverse Dutchman who owned the estate soon 
 retook it, and as the king could not wrest it 
 from him, the pension was forever ineffective. 
 
V 
 
 Ieven rooms or lobbies in the Mu- 
 seum are devoted to the exhibition 
 of engravings as well as of their 
 blocks or plates, of which there are 
 more than 2000 on copper and about 15,000 on 
 wood. It is a most curious collection of orig- 
 inal work, more complete and more diversified 
 than that of any printing-house before the 
 nineteenth century. Indeed, it would not be 
 easy to find a rival as to quantity and quahty 
 among modern houses. Here are etchings by 
 Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Teniers; engrav- 
 ings by Bolswei"t, Vorsterman, Pontius, Ede- 
 linck. One looks with more than ordinary 
 attention on the St. Catharine, the only etching 
 known to have been done by the hand of 
 Rubens, as well as on the wonderful hne en- 
 graving by Edehnck of the portrait of Philippe 
 de Champagne. The prints that may be most 
 admired were made to the order of Plantin's 
 successors, who were contemporaries of the 
 greatest Flemish masters, but their preference 
 for the work of true artists was implanted by 
 the founder of the house. "I never neglected," 
 Plantin said, " when I had the opportunity and 
 
64 ^imm^^tetn^ ^n^mm* 
 
 the ability, to pay for the work of the best 
 engravers." The sparsity of engravings in his 
 earher books was, no doubt, caused by his 
 poverty ; but even these petty books show that 
 they were planned by a man of superior taste, 
 by a printer whose heart was in his trade, 
 and who loved his work for the work's sake. 
 His early training as a book-finisher gave him 
 decorative inchnations. What he could not do 
 on book covers with gilding-tools he tried to 
 have done on the printed leaves with wood-cuts 
 from designs by eminent artists. 
 
 He must have quickly earned good reputa- 
 tion as a skillful printer of wood-cuts, for he 
 was chosen by the authorities of Antwerp over 
 all rivals to print a large illustrated book 
 describing the recent obsequies of Charles Y. 
 This book he pubhshed in 1559 in the form of 
 an oblong foho, containing thirty-three large 
 plates, at the cost of 2000 florins. These plates, 
 although separately printed, were designed to 
 be conjoined, and used as a processional frieze. 
 In planning this book he did not repeat the 
 folly of many of his rivals, who were still imi- 
 tating the coarse designs and rude cutting of 
 the obsolete " Biblia Pauperum " and " Specu- 
 lum Salutis." He gave the work to a compe- 
 
The Entrance to the Engraving-roora— in Black and Gold. 
 
 10 
 
tent designer, and was equally careful with the 
 engraving and printing, and found his profit in 
 the large sale of many editions and in five lan- 
 guages. After this he made increasing use of 
 engravings on wood. No printer of his time 
 illustrated books so freely: in one book, the 
 "Botany" of Dodoens, the cuts would be re- 
 garded now as profusely extravagant. To this 
 day they are models of good hne drawing and 
 clean engraving. When the text did not call 
 for descriptive illustrations he made free use of 
 large initial letters, head-bands, and tail-pieces. 
 The shelves and closets of the Museum contain 
 thousands of initials remarkable for the vigor 
 of their designs or the ingenuity of their back- 
 grounds or interlacings. One series is about 
 five inches square. One cannot refrain from 
 expressing the regret that so many modern 
 designers and publishers seem to be entirely 
 ignorant of the beauty of some of the Plan- 
 tin initials, and prefer elaborated distortions of 
 the alphabet, which are every way unworthy 
 of comparison. But Plantin soon found that 
 there was a hmit to the effects to be had from 
 engravings on wood when printed on his rough 
 paper and by his weak presses. He began to 
 develop on a grand scale illustrations on cop- 
 
68 ^Imitin^^omu^ a^u^sfnim, 
 
 per, of which the " Humanae Salutis Monu- 
 menta " of 1571, with its seventy-one large 
 plates, was his earhest and most noteworthy 
 example. 
 
 Two rooms contain the remnants of the 
 type-foundry, which provoke reflection on the 
 difference hetween old and new methods of 
 book-making. The modern printer does not 
 make his types ; he does not even own a punch 
 or a matrix. Buying his types from many 
 foundries, he has great hberty of selection, but, 
 necessarily, a selection from the designs of 
 other men. It follows that the text types of 
 one printer may be — must be, often — just the 
 same as those of another printer, and that there 
 can be no really strong individuality in the 
 books of any house. In the sixteenth century 
 every eminent printer had some of his types 
 made to his own order, which types he only 
 used. This was the method: He hired an 
 engraver to draw and cut in steel the model 
 letters, or punches, and to provide the accom- 
 panying mold and matrices. Keeping the 
 punches, he took the mold and matrices to 
 men who cast types for the trade, who fur- 
 nished him all he needed. The founders who 
 made Plantin's earher types were Gruyot and 
 
The Type-foimdry. 
 
Van Everbrocht of Antwerp. The designs for 
 these types and the making of the punches and 
 matrices were by skilled engravers in different 
 cities at prices which now seem incredibly 
 small — from twenty to forty sous for punch 
 and matrix of ordinarj^ letter. Robert Gran j on 
 of Lyons and Guillaume Le Be of Paris did 
 much of his best work; Hautin of Rochelle, 
 Yen der Keere of Tours, and Bomberghe of 
 Cologne were also employed. Plantin had 
 types cast in his office after 1563, but the foun- 
 dry was not an important part of the house 
 until 1600; at that date the collection of 
 punches was very large. 
 
 Here are some of the common tools of type- 
 making, — the vises, grindstones, files, gravers, 
 etc., — and rude enough they seem. When we 
 go into the next room, and scrutinize the molds 
 and punches behind the wire screens, and the 
 justified matrices in the show-cases, we wonder 
 that this excellent workmanship could have 
 been done by these rough tools. Printed speci- 
 mens of some of the types are shown on the 
 walls, but they do not fairly show the full 
 merit of the work. It is true that the counters 
 are not as deep as a modern founder would 
 require, but the cutting is clean and good. 
 
72 <CI)irt0topi)ct 5^Iantm anti tfje 
 
 Here are the punches of the great type of the 
 Polyglot, of the music of the "Antiphonary," 
 besides Boman, Itahc, Greek, and Hebrew, — of 
 many sizes, — all out of use, out of style. Do 
 we make better types now '^ From the mechan- 
 ical point of view, yes : modern types are more 
 truly cut and ahgned, more sohd in body, than 
 those cast by hand from metal poured in the 
 mold with a spoon. From the utilitarian, and 
 even from the artistic standpoint, one cannot 
 say yes so confidently. Modem types are more 
 dehcate, have more finish, and more graceful 
 lines ; but the old types are stronger and sim- 
 pler, more easily read, and have features of 
 grace that have never been excelled. 
 
 To the admirer of old furniture, the room 
 numbered 26 — the bed-chamber of the last 
 Moretus — is attractive. A great bedstead of 
 carved oak, black with age, partly covered with 
 an embroidered silk coverlet (a marvel of neat 
 handiwork and dinginess), flanked by a grimy 
 prie-dieu and a wardrobe equally venerable, is 
 dimly reflected in a tarnished mirror of the last 
 century. On walls covered with stamped and 
 gilt leather hang two old prints and a carving 
 of the crucifixion. Elegant in its day, admu'a- 
 ble yet, but how dead and cheerless is this httle 
 
room ! As devoid of life and warmth as the 
 crucibles and furnaces in the foundry. 
 
 There is no room in the Museum deficient 
 in objects of interest, for in all are paintings or 
 prints or old typographic bric-a-brac enough to 
 evoke enthusiasm from the dullest observer; 
 but, after all, the great charm of a printer's 
 museum is in the printer's books, and the 
 Hbrary is properly placed at the end of all, and 
 is the culmination of all. It is rich in rare 
 books. Here is the " Bible of 36 lines," which 
 is rated by many bibhogi'aphers as the fii*st great 
 work of Grutenberg. Here are first editions and 
 fine copies fi'om the offices of all the famous 
 early printers. They were not bought for 
 show, nor as rarities — merely as texts to be 
 compared, collated, or referred to for a new 
 manuscript copy to be put in the compositors' 
 hands. The collection here shown of the books 
 printed by Plantin is large, probably larger than 
 can be found elsewhere, but not entirely com- 
 plete. They are not aiTanged in chronological 
 order; one has to consult Ruelens's catalogue 
 to see how Plantin's ambition rose with oppor- 
 tunity — to see what great advances he made 
 every year and for many years, not only in the 
 number of his books, but in their greater size 
 u 
 
74 • pmttm^9[^rmisf <It^i.0nuTi, 
 
 and merit, and in steadily increasing improve- 
 ment of workmanship. "He is all spirit," wrote 
 Montanns; "he gives little thought to food, or 
 drink, or repose. He hves to work." 
 
 VI 
 
 (Tel^J^^HE most valuable part of this col- 
 4Nff^^^^ lection of fourteen thousand books 
 is not in its printed but its written 
 Qi^^ treasures. Plantin was a model man 
 of business, who carefully preserved records, ac- 
 counts, and much of his correspondence, and 
 taught his successors to exercise similar dih- 
 gence. The records show more than the busi- 
 ness; they show the man and his motives. 
 Many are in Plantin's handwriting, the ac- 
 counts in Flemish, the correspondence in Latin, 
 French, and sometimes in Spanish. The more 
 valuable papers have been edited and pub- 
 lished by Max Rooses, the director of the 
 Museum. 
 
 In these records may be found his corre- 
 spondence with artists, scholars, and dignitaries, 
 both civil and ecclesiastical, as well as the 
 
Plantin's Private Office. 
 
weekly bills of his workmen, inventories of 
 stock, accounts of sales, of profit and loss, 
 memoranda of work done and work prepared — 
 everything one can need for an insight into the 
 economy of an old printing-house. Here is his 
 letter to the King of Spain setting forth his 
 grievances from the king's delayed payments; 
 the items of money spent at the wedding-feast 
 of each daughter (and curious reading it is) ; 
 the bills of type-founders and engravers on 
 wood ; his written wresthngs with money- 
 lenders who wanted too much of interest or of 
 security, and with booksellers who wanted too 
 much discount, and sold books below regular 
 prices; his bargainings with editors and au- 
 thors for manuscripts, and the pourboires he 
 had to pay to officials of high and low station 
 for permission to print ; his complaints against 
 the intolerable delays of artists and engravers.* 
 Rich as it is in reUcs of the domestic life of the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the house 
 and furniture of the Museum does not show 
 
 * There are engravers on worthless people. There they 
 copper here who offer to work pawn their goods and tools, 
 for eight florins a day in their Whoever has work in their 
 own houses. When they have hands is obliged to hunt them 
 worked one or two days they up and pay their debts. [Plan- 
 go to taverns and disreputa- tin to Ferdinand Ximenes, Jan. 
 ble houses, and carouse with 2, 1587.] 
 
78 €^ti^pfyx ^imxtin anb tfje 
 
 that domestic life with the clearness that the 
 business life can be seen in the records. What 
 is missing ? 
 
 It is not an easy matter to make a wise 
 selection from the wealth of the material which 
 M. Rooses, the director of the Museum, has 
 brought to light. One must begin with the 
 unexpected discoveries. Contrary to the pre- 
 vaihng behef , Plantin's editions were not small. 
 His ordinary edition was 1250 copies ; his larg- 
 est edition was 3900 copies of the Pentateuch 
 in Hebrew. He refused to print books in small 
 editions unless he was paid the cost of the 
 work before it was begun. He sold few single 
 copies ; the retail trade in ordinary books was 
 done by wife and daughters in shops in other 
 quarters of the city. Nearly all his books went 
 to booksellers at fairs or in other cities, to 
 whom he gave the small discount of about 
 one-sixth of the retail price. The retail prices 
 were very small. The ordinary text-book, in 
 an octavo (in size of leaf equivalent to the 
 modern 16mo) of three hundred and twenty 
 pages, was then sold at retail for ten sous. A 
 Horace of eleven sheets sold for one sou; a 
 Virgil of nineteen and a half sheets for three 
 
sous — of thirty-eight sheets for five sous ; the 
 Bible, 1567, in Latin, at one florin. For large 
 quartos and folios, for texts in Greek, and for 
 profusely illustrated books, the prices were as 
 high as, or even higher than, they are now, 
 considering the then greater purchasing power 
 of money. For his Polyglot in eight vol- 
 umes he asked seventy florins, equivalent to 
 one hundi'ed and twelve dollars of American 
 money. 
 
 The modern publisher is amazed at the low 
 prices for ordinary books, but the records 
 show that the cost of a book was in proportion. 
 Plantin paid veiy Uttle to authors and editors. 
 Sometimes they were required to contribute to 
 the cost of the printing, and were given a few 
 copies of the book after it had been printed as 
 a full make-weight. As a rule they contributed 
 nothing, and were paid, if paid at all, in their 
 own books. Many authors got but ten florins 
 for the copy of valuable and salable books. The 
 Hterary world was undergoing a curious transi- 
 tion. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centui'ies 
 scholars had tried to keep to themselves their 
 knowledge ; in the sixteenth century they were 
 eager to publish it, and glad to get an oppor- 
 
80 pfanttn^^Ul^retu^ sjt^u^mm. 
 
 tunity.^ Many seemed to think that they were 
 under moral obhgation to give freely what they 
 knew. 
 
 Designing and engraving were relatively 
 cheaper than they are now. From four to 
 seven sous was the price for designing and 
 engraving a beautiful initial letter, not to he 
 had as good now for as many dollars. What 
 modern publisher would hesitate to engage 
 Yan den Broeck to furnish the elaborate and 
 beautiful design, Otir Lady of Seven Sorrows^ a 
 full folio page, at the price of six florins ? For 
 his superb engraving of this design Plantin 
 overpaid the dissolute Jerome Wiericx ninety- 
 six florins. The usual price of the brothers 
 Wiericx for engraving a plate of foho size was 
 thirty florins. 
 
 All the materials of the book were cheap. 
 The ordinary paper came from France and cost, 
 according to weight and quahty, from twenty- 
 four to seventy-eight sous a ream. Even the 
 large vellum skins of Holland, bought for the 
 
 * Balzac wrote a letter to ful. He said he was delighted be- 
 
 Elzevir, in which he thanked cause he had been introduced 
 
 Elzevir effusively for his pirati- in the good society of the great 
 
 cal reprint of one of his books. authors, that had received the 
 
 Balzac never got a sou from imprimatur and approval of 
 
 this reprint, not even thanks, Elzevir, 
 but he was not the less grate- 
 
''■ r« 
 
 A Room in Plantin's House. 
 
 12 
 
^iaxtdn^^tctu^ <S^u^nm\. 
 
 83 
 
 "Royal Polyglot," cost but forty-five sous the 
 dozen. 
 
 He paid his binders for the labor of binding 
 (not including the leather or boards) an octavo 
 in full sheep one sou for each copy; for a 
 quarto, one sou and a half to two sous; for a 
 foho, in full caK, from seven to eleven sous.* 
 Richly gilt books were paid for at higher 
 prices, but miserably small they seem as com- 
 pared with present prices. 
 
 YII 
 
 m's^p Y Plantin had done no more than 
 to found a large printing-house, he 
 
 would deserve no more considera- 
 tion than any other successful 
 trader of his time. He was not an ordinary 
 trader; he has right to an honorable place 
 among the great educators of his century — not 
 for what he wrote, but for what he had written 
 
 * M. Rooses appraises the 
 real or purchasing value of sil- 
 ver in the time of Plantin, at 
 its maximum, at four times its 
 stamped or nominal value. By 
 
 this standard the sou should 
 be rated as equal to eight cents 
 of American money, and the 
 florin of twenty sous as equal 
 to $1.60. 
 
84 Cljrijstxipljct ^^Imttin aiiti tjjc 
 
 or created for him. As a scholar or as an editor 
 he has no standing, but as a pubhsher he out- 
 ranks all his contemporaries. He printed more 
 than sixteen hundi*ed editions, some of which 
 were original work written at his request. His 
 greatest production was eighty-three editions 
 in 1575, and the lowest, twenty-four editions in 
 1576, the year of the Spanish Fury. 
 
 One of the difficulties of a pubhsher of the 
 sixteenth century was the scarcity of books 
 that could be printed to profit. To this could 
 be added the poverty and the sparseness of 
 readers. All the popular classic texts, and all 
 ordinary forms of school books and of devo- 
 tional books, had been printed so many times, 
 and in such large editions, that they often had 
 to be sold for Uttle more than the cost of the 
 white paper. Yet Plantin entered this over- 
 crowded field with confidence. His books of 
 devotion were more carefully printed and more 
 richly illustrated; his school texts were more 
 carefully edited and more intelligently ar- 
 ranged. All were of the first order; he did not 
 pander to low appetites ; his amis were always 
 high and his taste was severe. 
 
 Plantin's first attempt at a great book, the 
 Flemish Dictionary, was begun by him soon 
 
after his arrival in Antwerp. After many delays 
 and difficulties the book was pubhshed ; but the 
 Hterary merit of the work was largely due to 
 the editors he engaged to perfect his unfinished 
 plans. This experience was of value. It taught 
 him that he was better fitted to plan than to 
 write or compile books, and he never forgot the 
 lesson. Ever after he confined himself entirely 
 to direction. Here he was supreme. Montanus 
 said that no printer of his time had the courage 
 to plan so great a book, or the skill to bring it 
 to such a successful conclusion. No one knew 
 so well how to infuse every helper on the work 
 with his own enthusiasm : he made the press- 
 men and compositors as zealous as the editors. 
 His amicable relations with authors, editors, art- 
 ists, and engravers show that he did not control 
 by trick or tact. He must have been just and 
 kind, for he retained their friendship to the last. 
 The printers of that period could find but 
 httle else than classical or theological works to 
 print, and most of them continuously pubhshed 
 their ventures in the small size of octavo and 
 duodecimo. Plantin's choice was for great f ohos 
 in which he could show large types, and print 
 on wood or copper to fine advantage. He went 
 at the work boldly. Undismayed by his losses 
 
86 3^laittin:^3l^rmij^ a^ijSfeum* 
 
 in the Polyglot and by the Spanish Fury, he 
 engaged professors at the University of Louvain 
 to revise and collect texts and prepare copy for 
 new editions of the fathers of the church, be- 
 ginning with St. Augustine in ten volumes, at a 
 cost of thirteen thousand florins. This was fol- 
 lowed by St. Jerome in nine volumes. Then 
 came Tertullian ; then a great Latin Bible, and a 
 great French Bible, — all books of remarkable 
 beauty. While these were in press he was also 
 at work on fully illustrated books of botany by 
 Dodoens and De Lobel and Del'Ecluse ; on books 
 of geography by Mercator, Ortelius, and Guic- 
 ciardini ; on books of music, philology, archaeol- 
 ogy, navigation, and mathematics. Few of these 
 books came to him unsought. Most were writ- 
 ten at his suggestion or his order. All of them 
 owe their beauty of dress to his hberahty as a 
 pubhsher. 
 
 Doubtless Plantin would have preferred to 
 print and pubhsh books on science and educa- 
 tion, but the Fleming of that period was hardly 
 ready for them. Much as he needed instruction, 
 it was important that he should decide the ques- 
 tion whether he had the right to read or think 
 at all on the new speculations in science and 
 rehgion ; whether, indeed, he had the right to 
 
«: - ^'J:^'' 
 
 .* -**.'^'?!tlfc:^'' ^*»wl«>C ■%i:>VM 
 
 A Corner of the Court-yard. 
 
panting sr^oretii^ 2l9ii.^aim» 89 
 
 himself and his property. For the King of Spain 
 had practically denied both rights, and the ques- 
 tion was to he decided not by hooks hut by blows. 
 Before the year 1567 he had printed many 
 editions of the Bible in Latin, Flemish, and 
 Hebrew. By far the largest part of the read- 
 ing of the sixteenth century was theological, 
 and Plantin saw that he would make his great- 
 est success in getting an appointment as the 
 recognized or official printer of the hturgical 
 books of the Roman Cathohc Church. His 
 earhest attempts were beset with difficulties. 
 He had to solicit the help of Cardinal Gran- 
 velle and Phihp II. The permit given by 
 the pope and his cardinals was grudgingly 
 allowed by the ecclesiastical magnates of the 
 Netherlands. When he did begin to print, he 
 had to pay ten per cent, of his receipts to Paul 
 Manutius of Rome, who held the privilege. He 
 had to petition the King of Spain to get the 
 exclusive privilege he desired for the printing 
 of the Church on Spanish territory. His friend 
 Montanus told the king that Plantin's prices 
 were more, but his printing was better than 
 that of the Italian printers. It was this supe- 
 riority in workmanship, as well as in business 
 methods, that turned the scale in his favor. 
 
 13 
 
90 €l)ri?top{|cir ^^lantht anti tfje 
 
 Two of these service books, the great Psalter 
 and the Antiphonary of 1571 and 1572, are 
 admii'able pieces of rubricated printing. For 
 many years the printing of these and other 
 books kept him in financial embarrassment, but 
 the result demonstrated the wisdom of his fore- 
 sight. He never hved to enjoy the fruits, but 
 his successors were made rich by a monopoly 
 which they held for more than two hundred 
 years. 
 
 Plantin's printing was good, but it has been 
 overpraised. He was named " King of Print- 
 ers" at a time when the duties most admired 
 in a printer were those of editor and publisher. 
 Here he was grand. His purposes were always 
 far beyond those of his rivals; great folios, 
 many volumes, large types, difficult works in 
 httle-known languages, " lumping patents " or 
 privileges, profuse illustrations by eminent 
 artists — every pecuharity of typography that 
 dazzled or astonished. All his books are above 
 mediocrity, but he did not attain the highest 
 rank, either in his an'angement of types or in 
 his press-work. He had obscure rivals in 
 France and the Netherlands, who never made 
 showy or imposing books, but who did better 
 technical work, furnished more faultless texts, 
 
and showed clearer and sharper impressions 
 from types. After Balthazar III. a decline set 
 in. Some of the later books of the house are 
 positively shabby — a disgrace to their patent 
 and to the art. 
 
 VIII 
 
 <^^£^^^AS Plantin a Cathohc ? Prefaces 
 written by him in some books are 
 fervid with protestations of loyalty 
 to the old Church. Montanus and 
 Cardinal Granvelle, and many prominent eccle- 
 siastics, were his personal friends, and vouched 
 for his orthodoxy. The suspicious King of 
 Spain seems to have never doubted him, not 
 even when he went to Louvain, that home of 
 heresy. These are strong assurances; yet he 
 was often denounced as a Calvinist ; he printed 
 books that were proscribed, and for which he 
 lost his property. His correspondence with 
 heretics, but recently discovered, proves beyond 
 cavil that he was at heart a member of a non- 
 resisting sect not unhke that of the Friends, — 
 a sect which taught that religion was a personal 
 
92 paittin^St^omuisf SJ^Uj^mm* 
 
 matter of the heart and hfe, and not at all 
 dependent on churches, creeds, or confessions. 
 How much this flexible, non-resistant faith was 
 his justification for the insincerity of his pro- 
 fessions he alone can answer. It is certain that 
 he was insincere. He was not the stuff martyrs 
 are made of. 
 
 It is more pleasant to turn to another side 
 of his character, in which his sincerity is above 
 all reproach. To the last, Plantin was true to 
 his trade. Too many successful traders make 
 use of their success to indulge in unsuspected 
 propensities. They kick away the ladder they 
 chmbed up on; they forswear trade and plebeian 
 occupations ; they take their ease and display 
 their wealth; they build mansions and buy 
 estates; they seek social distinction for them- 
 selves and their famihes. From this vainglory 
 Plantin was entirely free. His ambition began 
 and ended in his printing-house. To form a 
 great office worthy of the king of printers, in 
 which the largest and best books should be 
 printed in a royal manner, was the great pur- 
 pose of his hfe. Neither the Spanish Fury, nor 
 the siege of Antwerp, nor the destruction of the 
 great city's privileges and commerce, nor the 
 king's neglect, nor his failure to perpetuate his 
 
Statuette of Madonna and Child, over Candlestick in the Press-room. 
 ( From an Etching made for this Article by Otto H. Bacher.) 
 
name in a son, nor the infirmities of old age, 
 shook liis purpose. The future fate of the office 
 for which he had labored was doubtful ; for his 
 sons-in-law were not in accord with one another. 
 He had little ready money and many obliga- 
 tions. He had only the appearance of success ; 
 his greatest bequest was the means by which 
 an unreached success could be attained. The 
 probabihties were that his name, fame, and 
 estate would soon disappear in a struggle be- 
 tween contentious heirs ; but with all the odds 
 against him, he did carry his point. The will 
 of the dying old man had more enduring force 
 in it than there was in any decree or treaty 
 then made for the perpetuation of the Spanish 
 dynasty. The Plantin-Moretus house outhved 
 the Spanish house of Hapsburg. For more 
 than three centuries the printing-office was 
 kept in the family in unbroken hne of descent ; 
 for at least three generations it maintained its 
 position as the first office in the world. The 
 Plantin types and presses and office are still the 
 pride of Antwerp, but the statue of the king's 
 representative, the fierce Duke of Alva, which 
 once dominated a square in the city, and who 
 boasted on the pedestal that he had restored 
 order and preserved religion and reconstructed 
 
96 €^ti^^^et ^lantm anti tJje 
 
 society, was long ago overthrown. No over- 
 throw could be more complete. It was not 
 merely the upsetting of statue or dynasty, but 
 of the foundations of medieval ideas and princi- 
 ples. Plantin, unwittingly no doubt, but not 
 the less efficiently, did his share in bringing 
 down this thorough destruction. The books 
 which he and others printed aroused the men- 
 tal activity and inspired the freedom which 
 soon made the Netherlands the foremost State 
 in the world. Kings die and behef s change ; 
 the bronze statues made to be imperishable are 
 destroyed, but the printed word stands. The 
 book hves, and hves forever. Horace was 
 right : it is more enduring than bronze. 
 
 In walking through the Museum the eye 
 does not weary of sight-seeing, but the brain 
 does refuse to remember objects that crowd 
 so fast. To remember, one must rest and 
 think of what he has seen. It is a rehef 
 to sit down under the cool arcade and look 
 out on the quiet court, and think of the 
 men who trod these stones. For here Plan- 
 tin and Moretus used to sit in the cool of the 
 day ; here they matured plans for great books, 
 and devised means of borrowing money to pay 
 fast-coming obhgations. Was the end worth 
 
the worry? Behind those latticed windows, 
 obscured with rampant grape-vine leaves, the 
 great Justus Lipsius wrote or connected the 
 books that were the admiration of all the 
 universities — books now almost forgotten. In 
 the next room Poelman and Kihanus and 
 Raphelengius plodded hke wheel-horses in 
 di*agging obscure texts out of the muddy roads 
 in which copyists and compositors had left 
 them. Who thinks of them now ? Through 
 that doorway have often passed the courtly 
 Van Dyke and the dashing Rubens, gay in vel- 
 vets and ghtteiing with jewels. They, at least, 
 are of the immortals. Dignitaries of all classes 
 have been here : patriarchal Jewish rabbis and 
 steeple-crowned Pui'itans; the ferocious Duke 
 of Alva and the wily Cardinal Grranvelle ; 
 cowled ecclesiastics from Rome and black- 
 gowned professors from Leyden. From upper 
 windows not far away Plantin's daughters 
 have looked out in terror, on the awful night 
 of the Spanish Fury, as they heard the yells of 
 the savage soldiers raging about the court, and 
 hstened to their threats of "blood and flesh 
 and fire," and shuddered at the awful fate that 
 seemed before them. Truly a sad time for the 
 making of books or the cultivation of letters. 
 u 
 
98 ^ImMin^^mn^ a^ii^sfciim. 
 
 And even nine years after tMs, the boy Baltha- 
 zar must have been stopped at study by the 
 roar of Farnese's guns during that memorable 
 siege, and by the shrieks of the starving 
 defenders of the doomed city. 
 
 The evening bell sounds its warning : it is 
 time to go. At our request the obhging con- 
 cierge gives us a few leaves from the grape- 
 vine, and we take oui* places in the outgoing 
 procession. Out once more in the steaming 
 streets — out in the confused roar and clatter of 
 modern city life. But the memory of the Mu- 
 seum is hke that of the chimes of Antwerp's 
 great cathedral — never to be forgotten. 
 

 
 
 
 21 
 
 
 
 -^- 
 
 18 
 
 17 
 
 16 
 
 15 
 
 14 
 
 19 
 
 20 ' — 1- 
 
 22 
 
 
 ,„, 
 
 2ti 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 25| 24 
 
 23 
 
 
 
 Z 
 
 > 
 
 X 
 
 13 
 
 ."iiU 
 
 30 1 29 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 
 Plan of the Plantin-Moretus Museum. 
 
 The Ground Floor : 
 1, 2, 3, Parlors. 
 4, 5, Shops. 
 
 6, Room of Tapestries. 
 
 7, Room of the correctors. 
 
 8, Office. 
 
 9, Room of Justus Lipsius. 
 
 10, Lobby. 
 
 11, Room for the letters. 
 
 12, Printing-room. 
 X, Porter's lodge, 
 
 Y, Staircase looking out on the 
 
 court. 
 Z, Servants' room, etc. 
 
 First Story : 
 13, 14, Front rooms. 
 
 15, 29, 30, Library. 
 
 16, 18, 22, Wood-engravings. 
 
 17, Lobby. 
 
 19, Copper-plates. 
 
 20, 24, Parlors. 
 
 21, Room of the licenses. 
 
 23, Room of the Antwerp engravers. 
 
 25, Rear room. 
 
 26, Sleeping-room. 
 31, Hall of archives. 
 X, Reading-room. 
 
 Y, Office of the Director. 
 
 Z, Staircase leading to the court. 
 

/