THREE CENTURIES OF ANTWERP PRINTERS
The joyous entry of the boy prince who was afterward to become Charles
V was the signal for ten days of rejoicing by the citizens of Antwerp.
This was early in the year 1515; and, in truth, the city prospered
mightily under the rule of the great Emperor, who favoured it on many
notable occasions. The bankers and merchant princes of Antwerp became
renowned the world over for their wealth and magnificence. Anthony
Fugger, who was the banker of Maximilian and Charles V, left a fortune
of six million golden crowns, and it is said that his name survives to
this day as a synonym for wealth--the common people calling any one
who is extremely rich a _rykke Fokker_, a rich Fugger. It is related
that another rich Antwerp merchant, Gasparo Dozzo, on being privileged
to entertain the Emperor in his house, cast into the fire a promissory
note for a large loan he had formerly made to his sovereign.
This period of wealth and prosperity continued till the very end of
the reign of the Emperor, but under his successor, Philip II, the city
was plunged into misfortunes and miseries as swift and as appalling as
those that befell in the terrible Fall of 1914. In 1556 Philip opened
a chapter of the Knights of the Golden Fleece at St. Mary's, afterward
the cathedral, in Antwerp--thereby recognising the supremacy of this
town over the others in his Flemish dominions. Among the new knights
to whom he gave the accolade were William the Silent and the Count of
Horn. Little men thought on that day of festivity and good will what
the future held in store for them all!
On August 18, 1566, the miraculous statue of the Blessed Virgin was
taken from its place in St. Mary's church and carried through the
streets of the city in a solemn procession--as it had been for nearly
two hundred years. This time there were murmurs of disapproval from
the crowds that lined the streets, some stones were thrown, and the
procession hastily returned to the church. The next day a small mob,
composed for the most part of boys and men of the lowest class,
entered the church and destroyed the statue and the entire contents of
the sacred edifice, including some seventy altars, and paintings and
statues almost without number. The organ, then the wonder of Europe,
was ruined, and the rabble dressed itself in the costly vestments of
the clergy and carried away the treasures of the church and even the
contents of the poor boxes. This was the beginning of the work of the
image-breakers, as they came to be called, which spread throughout
Flanders until scarcely a religious edifice had escaped the
destruction of its movable contents, while a few here and there were
burned. As noted in the chapter on Audenaerde, Margaret of Parma was
Regent at this time and acted resolutely to suppress the
disorders--which were largely due to the supine attitude of the local
magistrates at the beginning.
She had all but succeeded in restoring peace and quiet throughout
Flanders when Philip suddenly decided to send an army there, and
selected the Duke of Alva to command it. The story of the eighty
years' war that followed is familiar to every American through
Motley's account of it, although that brilliant writer is more
concerned with the details relating to the Dutch provinces than those
regarding the portion of the Netherlands that remained subject to
Spain. Two events, however, in the long war were so directly
concerned with Antwerp, and loom so large in its history, that they
cannot be passed over here. Both have a renewed interest in view of
the history of Antwerp's latest siege in 1914. These are the Spanish
Fury, and the great siege of the city by the Duke of Parma.
Alva, who superseded the gentle Margaret of Parma as Regent of the
Netherlands, quickly took stern measures for the repression of further
disorders at Antwerp, which he regarded as a hot-bed of heresy. A huge
citadel was built at the southern end of the town, near the Scheldt,
in 1572, in the centre of which Alva erected a bronze statue of
himself. On the marble pedestal the inscription related how "the most
faithful minister of the best of Kings had stamped out sedition,
repelled the rebels, set up religion, and restored justice and peace
to the country." So far were these boasts from being true that only
the following year, in 1573, Alva stole away to Spain secretly, his
government a failure, his army mutinous, and half of the country he
had been sent to rule in open and successful revolt. War with England
had ruined the commerce of Antwerp, Alva's fiscal policy and incessant
taxes had half beggared the people of the entire country, while
thousands of the noblest and bravest in the land had met death on the
scaffold or in the torture chambers of the Inquisition.
Requesens, the next Regent, was unable either to stem the rising tide
of revolt or to pay his soldiers--King Philip failing to send funds
until the pay of the Spanish veterans was at one time twenty-two
months in arrears. The sudden death of Requesens in 1576 left matters
in a nearly chaotic condition. The veterans who had been fighting in
Zeeland against the Dutch mutinied and returning to Flanders captured
the town of Alost, where they forced the citizens to give them food
and shelter. On November 4th, 1576, the mutineers marched to Antwerp,
some two thousand strong, where they joined the Spaniards and
mercenaries in the citadel. They were under the command of an
_Eletto_, or elected leader. Jerome Roda, a Spaniard, had proclaimed
himself the commandant of the fortress until the new Regent, Don John
of Austria, should arrive in Flanders. Under these two worthies the
combined forces in the citadel, some five thousand men in all,
proceeded to attack the city. The citizens, on their side, had for
some time feared such an attack and should have been able to repel
it. There were fourteen thousand armed burghers, four thousand
Walloons and an equal number of German troops--twenty-two thousand in
all. It may have been that they felt unduly secure against an attack
on that day because it was Sunday. It is certain that they were badly
commanded.
Shortly after noon the Spaniards rushed from the citadel and across
the broad open esplanade cleared a few years before by Alva, shouting
their war cry, _Sant Jago y cierra España_. The _Eletto_ was the first
to fall, but the rush of furious soldiers was not to be stopped by a
single volley. The Walloons put up a brave fight but part of the
Germans treacherously lowered their pikes and let the Spaniards pass
down the rue St. Georges. On the Place de Meir the defenders made
another stand, but were swiftly swept back in a confused and
disorganised mass by the Spanish cavalry. At the Hotel de Ville the
burghers fought fiercely until the mutineers set fire to the edifice.
In the conflagration that followed not only this noble structure, one
of the finest in Europe, but the adjoining guild houses and some
eighty other buildings were consumed. Of the Hotel de Ville only the
blackened walls remained. By nightfall the Spaniards and the German
mercenaries, most of whom had joined the victors in order to share in
the spoils, were masters of the doomed city.
That night the scenes of pillage and rapine as the savage and half
drunken soldiers swept through the streets and ransacked the houses of
all who did not instantly pay a stiff ransom, exceed the descriptive
powers of the contemporary historians. One of the burgomasters was
stabbed to end a quarrel as to his ransom. Many burghers were killed
near the town hall, or were burned within it like rats. For three days
the city was given up to be sacked. The number who were killed,
including women and children, has been variously estimated at from
seven thousand to seventeen thousand of the citizens and defenders of
the city, and from two hundred and fifty to six hundred of the
Spaniards. The loss in property amounted to many millions, but no
accurate estimate could be made of it, as many who suffered most in
this respect lost their lives as well. Cartloads of plunder were sent
out of the city, while much of it was actually sold by those who did
not care or dare to keep it in a temporary market-place at the Bourse.
Some were said to have concealed their wealth by having sword hilts
and breastplates made of solid gold. Like the ill-gotten gains of the
Spaniards in America, however, none of this booty--the reward of
treachery, of assassination, of cruelty and the sudden setting free of
all the basest elements in human nature--profited its captors very
greatly. In a few days after the arrival of Don John, the new Regent,
the mutinous soldiers were paid off and marched away to Maestricht and
presently to other battlefields, from Flanders to Lombardy, where, no
doubt, most of the golden breastplates and sword hilts fell--in due
time--to other conquerors. Such was the Spanish Fury--until 1914 the
worst blot on civilisation that history records.
Soon after the Spaniards left the city permission was given to the
people to destroy the citadel that the tyrant Alva had built to
overawe the town. The entire population flocked to this welcome
task--men, women and children, each taking a shovel, a basket or a
barrow. It is related that even the great ladies of the city took part
in the work of demolition--so hated had the grim fortress become. The
statue of the cruel Duke that he had so vaingloriously erected in the
centre of the citadel only five years before was torn down and dragged
through the streets by a cheering throng. Charles Verlat has given the
world a vivid picture of this incident which hangs in the Antwerp
museum.
[Illustration: "DRAGGING THE STATUE OF THE DUKE OF ALVA THROUGH THE
STREETS OF ANTWERP."--C. VERLAT.]
Six years later the Duke d'Alençon, who had been made nominal
sovereign over the Low Countries by William the Silent, planned to
treacherously attack and sack the city with his French soldiers, some
three thousand, five hundred strong. This time, however, the citizens
were not caught napping and when the tocsin in the cathedral called
the alarm the burghers rushed out in thousands. The French
swashbucklers proved to be less stubborn fighters than the Spanish
veterans and soon were driven back in a confused mass to the city
gates, most of them being killed and the cowardly Duke only saving
himself by flight. This episode has been derisively called the French
Fury. It happened January 17, 1583.
The following year Alexander Farnese, the Duke of Parma--and the son
of the Duchess of Parma, whose career as Regent of the Netherlands
was briefly described in the chapter on Audenaerde, her
birthplace--determined to besiege Antwerp, which, since the Spanish
Fury, had fallen into the hands of the revolted Provinces.
Unfortunately for its defenders, William the Silent had just died at
the hands of an assassin and his plans for the protection of the city
by flooding all of the marshes surrounding it were not followed. The
butchers opposed flooding all of their pasture lands and the important
Kowenstein Dyke was not cut. The Prince of Parma, who was the greatest
military leader of his age, swiftly captured the forts on the Flemish
side of the river, seized the Kowenstein Dyke--which extended on the
Brabant side from a point opposite Calloo to Starbroeck--and began to
build a bridge across the river itself. This daring project, if
successful, would completely isolate Antwerp from the sea and its
Dutch allies and render certain its ultimate subjection by starvation.
The bridge was built partly on piles, as far out as the water was
sufficiently shallow, then the intervening gap was spanned by means of
thirty-two large vessels anchored at both ends and lashed together by
chains and heavy cables. The structure was completed in February,
1585, to the amazement of the besieged burghers and the great joy of
the Prince's army. It would seem a small affair to the pontoon bridge
builders of to-day, being two thousand, four hundred feet long and
twelve feet wide, but at that time it was deemed one of the most
notable achievements ever known. The defenders of the city sent huge
fireships down the river to destroy the bridge. One of these actually
exploded against the structure and another off Calloo, destroying more
than eight hundred Spanish soldiers and endangering their intrepid
leader himself. The bridge was wrecked, but Farnese repaired it before
the people at Antwerp learned of the success of their attempt.
A tremendous attack was next made on the Kowenstein Dyke, with a view
to cutting it--a feat that could have been done without any trouble if
the Prince of Orange's counsels had been followed a few months
earlier. A fleet of one hundred and fifty Dutch ships joined in the
battle from the sea side, while a strong force of Flemings, English
and Dutch from Antwerp attacked the dyke from the land side. After a
fierce struggle it was cut, the waters rushed through and one vessel
loaded with provisions for the beleaguered city made its way past.
That night Antwerp rejoiced, but in the darkness the Prince of Parma
made another furious assault and finally drove back the allies,
capturing twenty-eight ships of the Dutch fleet and filling in the
dyke once more. This victory--which as a feat of arms was one of the
most brilliant of the war--sealed the fate of the city, which finally
capitulated August 17th. So important was this success to the
Spanish, cause that Isabella, the daughter of King Philip, was
awakened by her father during the night by the tidings, "Antwerp is
ours!" Its fall settled approximately the extent of the region that
was left to the Spanish Crown out of the wreck of its former empire in
the Low Countries. Thenceforth all of the provinces to the west and
south of Antwerp--the region now comprised in the Kingdom of
Belgium--remained subject to the King of Spain and his Austrian
successors until the great French Revolution. The remaining provinces
became the Dutch Republic and now form the Kingdom of Holland.
The Spanish Fury and the great siege had together well-nigh destroyed
the commerce of the port, and the heavy fine imposed by the conquerors
upon the city for its rebellion completed its ruin. Packs of wild dogs
are said to have roamed unmolested through the outlying villages,
which stood deserted, while even wolves were seen. Grass grew in the
once crowded streets of the city, and famine added to the miseries of
its fast declining population. It would hardly be conceivable that a
quarter of a century of hideous misrule could have so utterly
obliterated the prosperity of this once opulent city, but for the
fearful object lesson afforded in 1914 that war is still as potent a
breeder of destruction and despair as it was in that dark age.
Enough, however, of wars and sieges and the sack of cities. Antwerp's
past includes many pleasanter stories as well--stories of progress and
achievement. To those who are interested in the noble art of printing,
and the various branches of the fine arts that serve as handmaids to
the printer, Antwerp possesses one of the rarest treasure-houses in
the world. This is the Museum Plantin-Moretus, for three centuries the
head office and workshop of the great printing-house whose name it
bears.
Christopher Plantin, the founder of this famous establishment, was by
birth a Frenchman--having first seen the light of day in the vicinity
of Tours in the year 1514. Fleeing from the plague with his father to
Lyons, he went from there to Orleans, to Paris, and finally to Caen in
Normandy, where he learned the art of printing from Robert Mace. Here
also he met Jeanne Rivière, who became his wife in 1545 or 1546. The
couple soon went to Paris, where Plantin learned the art of
bookbinding and of making caskets and other articles of elegance from
leather. In 1549 he came to Antwerp and the following year was
enrolled as a citizen and also as a member of the famous guild of St.
Luke with the title of printer. He does not appear to have followed
this profession, however, but speedily gained much renown for his
exquisite workmanship as a bookbinder and casket maker, finding
several wealthy patrons and protectors-among them Gabriel de Çayas,
Secretary of Philip II, then the most powerful monarch in Christendom.
In the year 1555, while on his way to deliver in person a jewel-case
he had just made for this client, he met with an adventure that
changed the course of his career. It was quite dark before he had
completed his errand, and as he made his way along the narrow, ill-lit
streets of the old city he was set upon by a party of drunken
revellers who mistook him, with the casket under his arm, for a guitar
player against whom they had some grievance. One of the party ran the
unfortunate casket-maker through the body with his sword, and he had
barely strength enough to drag himself home, more nearly dead than
alive. Skilful medical and surgical aid finally saved his life, but
left him unable to do any manual work. He therefore gave up his
casket-making and resumed the trade of printer, which he had learned
at Caen. Instead of a misfortune, as it no doubt seemed at the time,
this sword thrust proved the turning point in his career, for in his
new profession he was destined to achieve undying fame.
There were at this time no less than sixty-six printing establishments
in the Low Countries, of which thirteen were at Antwerp, some of the
latter rivalling the best printers of Paris, Basel and Venice in the
beauty of their productions. Plantin's first book was issued the year
of his accident, in 1555, and was entitled "_La Institutione di una
fanciulla nata nobilmente_." During the next seven years his presses
turned out a limited number of works, but in 1562 his office was
raided by order of the Regent, Margaret, the Duchess of Parma, and
three of his workmen seized and condemned to the galleys for a
heretical book they had printed unknown to him, entitled "_Briefve
instruction pour prier_." Plantin fled to France, and to avoid
confiscation he had some of his friends, acting as creditors, sell and
buy in his printing plant. The following year--having convinced the
Government of his orthodoxy--he returned to Antwerp and organised a
company consisting of himself and four partners, including some of his
pretended creditors. While this arrangement lasted, from 1563 to
1567, more than two hundred books were printed, and forty workmen kept
constantly employed. His work was already considered notable for the
beauty of its type and excellence of the paper used.
Soon after the partnership was dissolved Plantin undertook what was
destined to be the greatest work of his career, and one of the most
notable in the history of printing, the famous _Biblia Regia_. This
was an edition of the Bible in four ancient languages, Latin, Hebrew,
Greek and Chaldean. The Hebrew type was purchased from a Venetian
printer, while the last two were cast expressly for this book. His
friend Çayas interested Philip II in the project and that monarch sent
the great scholar Arias Montanus from Alcala to supervise the work. At
the suggestion of Cardinal Granville, Syriac was added to the other
texts, so that, including French, there were six languages in all. The
first volume of this "Polyglot Bible," as it came to be called,
appeared in 1569 and the eighth and last in 1573. The work proved to
be exceedingly costly, and to help meet the expense the King of Spain
advanced 21,200 florins, and granted Plantin a monopoly for its sale
throughout the Spanish dominions for the period of twenty years. A
similar monopoly was granted by the Pope, the Emperor, the King of
France and the Republic of Venice. In spite of all this, the book
brought its printer no profits, but kept him in debt for the rest of
his life. Pensions promised by Philip II to himself and his
son-in-law, Raphelingen, were never paid.
Between the editor of the great Bible and its printer a strong
friendship sprang up. "This man," wrote Arias on one occasion, "is all
mind and no matter. He neither eats, drinks, nor sleeps." And again,
"Never did I know so capable and so kindhearted a man. Every day I
find something fresh to admire in him, but what I admire the most is
his humble patience towards envious colleagues, whom he insists on
wishing well, though he might do them much harm."
Besides the _Biblia Regia_ Plantin, now at the height of his fame,
managed to turn out a vast quantity of printed matter. High in royal
favour by reason of this worthy work, he had no difficulty in
obtaining for himself and his heirs a profitable monopoly for printing
and selling missals and breviaries throughout Spain's wide dominions.
While the largest printers at Paris rarely employed more than six
presses, Plantin kept twenty-two constantly at work, had agents at
Paris and Leyden, and sent a member of his family every year to attend
the fairs at Leipzig and Frankfort. In 1575 his office is said to have
had seventy-three kinds of type, weighing over seventeen tons.
In 1570 he was appointed by Philip to the newly created office of
Prototypographer in the Netherlands. Masters and men in the printing
trade had to apply to him for certificates as to their fitness, while
he was also required to draw up a list of forbidden books. In this,
curiously enough, one of the earlier products of his own press found a
place--a rhyming version of the Psalms in French by Clement Marot.
This office does not seem to have paid much salary, if any, or to have
given its first possessor anything but a lot of worry.
The Plantin Press was located at various places about the city until
1576, when it was established on the rue Haute near the Porte de St.
Jean. Three years later Plantin purchased from the owner of this
property the premises occupied by the present museum and extending
from the rue Haute through to the Friday Market, with a large gateway
opening into the latter. Plantin had been only eight months in this
new location when the Spanish Fury broke out. He was away on a
journey himself, but his son-in-law, Moretus, had to pay a heavy
fine to save the printing-office from pillage. The next few years were
full of trouble and anxiety. For a time Plantin had to leave Antwerp,
going to Leyden, where he met Justus Lipsius and was made printer to
the University. During the great siege of Antwerp he fled, with many
other Catholics, to Cologne, where he thought for a time of
establishing his chief printing-office. After the siege he hurried
home, but a short time later his health began to fail.
[Illustration: COURTYARD OF THE PLANTIN MUSEUM, ANTWERP.]
It was in the house on the Friday Market that the dying printer
gathered his family about him. His only son had died in infancy, but
his five daughters had all lived to be married, three of them to men
associated with him in the printing office. The eldest, Margaret,
married Francis Raphelingen, the chief proof-reader and an able
linguist; while the second, Martina, married Jean Moretus, the father
of a long line, of which the eldest sons bore the same name so that
they came to be distinguished by numbers, the first being Jean Moretus
I--like a line of kings. This son-in-law was Plantin's business
manager. The third daughter aided the mother, who ran a linen business
in the frugal way that many Flemish housewives have of helping their
husbands. A fourth, Magdalen, when only a child, corrected proofs on
the _Biblia Regia_ in five languages, and later married her father's
Paris agent. The fifth married a brother of Jean Moretus I, who became
a diamond-cutter.
Plantin had from a very early date adopted the motto "_Labori et
Constantia_," together with the emblem of a hand holding a pair of
open compasses, which may be seen over the Friday Market gateway to
the museum. This emblem, with the motto entwining it in the form of a
scroll, or appearing above, below or across it in a hundred
variations, is the mark by which connoisseurs can distinguish the
products of the Plantin Press. It must have been constantly in the
mind of the great printer himself, for on his deathbed he composed the
following French couplet, which expresses and describes his own
character better than any epitaph could do:
"Un Labeur courageux muni d'humble Constance
Resiste à tous assauts par douce Patience."
On July 1, 1589, this "giant among printers" breathed his last, and
was buried in the ambulatory of the cathedral, his friend Justus
Lipsius writing the inscription for his tombstone. While his name is
not associated with the earliest beginnings of the art of printing,
and the products of his press do not therefore command the almost
fabulous prices paid for the rarest productions of some of the first
printers, Christopher Plantin was not only the greatest printer of his
age, but one of the greatest in the history of the art. Almost from
the first he knew how to gather about him the foremost scholars and
artists of his time, making his establishment not merely a
printing-office but an institution of learning, a home of the fine
arts. Arias Montanus, editor of the _Biblia Regia_, aided by a host of
the most learned churchmen of Europe; Justus Lipsius, lecturer before
Princes at the Universities of Leyden and Louvain; Mercator and
Ortelius, the geographers, from whom the world learned the right way
to make maps and atlases; Crispin, Van den Broeck, Martin de Vos, and
a score of the foremost Flemish artists, who were employed by Plantin
to illustrate his books; these and many more no doubt were frequent
visitors at the printing-house during the lifetime of its founder.
These noble traditions were fully maintained under his successors.
Jean Moretus I ruled over the destinies of the house until his death,
in 1610, leaving it to his two sons, Jean II and Balthazar I. The
latter was the greatest of the dynasty of printers after Plantin and
Jean Moretus I. He was a warm friend of Rubens, who illustrated many
of the publications of the house during this period. In the fourth
generation, represented by Balthazar III, who ruled for half a
century, from 1646 to 1696, the family was ennobled, but after this
period the house confined its output and commerce to missals and
breviaries, under the monopoly granted by Philip II for the countries
under the rule of Spain. This business was completely destroyed by an
edict prohibiting the importation of foreign books into the Spanish
dominions, and in 1800 the printing office ceased operations. It
resumed activity on a small scale once or twice during the nineteenth
century, but finally closed in 1867, after an existence of three
hundred and twelve years, and in 1876 the last representative of the
house, Edouard Moretus, sold the entire establishment, with all its
priceless collections and furnishings, to the City of Antwerp for the
sum of 1,200,000 francs, to be maintained as a museum.
During the splendid period of activity in the first half of the
seventeenth century, the throng of famous men in the libraries and the
corrector's room of the old establishment surpassed that of the days
of Plantin and Jean Moretus I. Rubens, Van Dyck, Erasmus Quellin and a
host of other artists; Lævinius Torrentius, bishop and poet, Kiliaen,
the lexicographer, and scores of other learned men; Princes and Dukes
innumerable, the patrons and protectors of the house--all these and
many more were constant visitors. To the student the museum of to-day
recalls these great names with a freshness and vividness that the
ordinary museum fatally lacks, for here are countless mementoes of
their presence in the very proofs and prints they handled and
corrected, in the letters they wrote, in the sketches drawn by the
greatest artists of Flanders and engraved by the foremost engravers of
the time.
As a detailed description of the Plantin Museum can be found in all
the guidebooks, while an excellent handbook regarding its treasures by
Max Rooses, its renowned curator, can be purchased for a franc, it
would be unnecessary as well as tedious to recount them here. To those
who have but a little time at their disposal a liberal honorarium to
the attendant in each room--all of whom are garbed in brown with a
quaint cap of the same colour, as the printers of the house were wont
to be dressed in the great olden days--will bring forth a wealth of
curious and interesting information not to be found in any book,
anecdotes of distinguished visitors, bits of lore about this or the
other treasure, that will make the trifling investment well worth
while. In our case we made our first visit in this way, roaming about
the splendid old rooms and dipping into this case or that at
random--like butterflies amid a bower of roses. Visitors were few that
day and we had each attendant to ourselves. Later on we made another
visit, armed with letters of introduction to M. Denucé, the learned
assistant curator, and through his courtesy revisited each room once
more. A single book--one of the marvellous collections of early
Bibles--was, according to the attendant in that room, made the object
of an offer of a million francs, or maybe it was a million dollars, by
a well-known American millionaire. The collection in its entirety, if
dispersed by auction, would doubtless fetch many millions--but it
belongs exactly where it is. Like the collection of Van Eycks and
Memlings in Bruges, it would be a world calamity to despoil it or
disperse it. Even the very furnishings of the chambers up-stairs are
associated with the house of Plantin, were used by the family for
many years; the paintings that crowd the walls like an art gallery are
for the most part by Rubens--portraits of leading members of the
family. Then there are numberless drawings, prints and engravings that
represent the work of half of the greatest artists of the Flemish
school during the century of its greatest splendour--an inimitable,
indescribable collection!
Among other pictorial treasures we saw a collection of views of old
Antwerp that the Professor said he would gladly have spent a month in,
if only his vacation were a little longer. Then there were the
books--and again words fail to convey an adequate idea of the richness
and interest of the collection. There are nearly a score of early
German Bibles, including a fine copy of Gutenberg's _Bible latine_ of
1450; rare German and Italian incunabula, choice examples of the work
of the early Flemish printers, including _Les dicts moraulx des
philosophes_, printed by Colard Manson at Bruges in 1477. There are
examples of early French, Dutch and Italian printing; there are
Aldines, Estiennes, Elzevirs; books from the first printing presses of
Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. Truly the historian of the early art
of printing might come here and complete his work within these charmed
walls--he would need no other materials! Naturally the collection of
books printed by the house itself is large, though not complete, and
there are a great many products of other Antwerp presses. Most
valuable of all is the collection of manuscripts, which includes a
huge Latin Bible completed in 1402 and ornamented with the most
marvellous miniatures. Here are also several superb Books of Hours and
many other books with choice miniatures.
The printing-rooms also deserve all the time the tourist can spare.
The proofreaders' room is a gem, architecturally, artistically, and
from its historic associations with one of the world's finest arts. A
few old proof sheets are still lying on the high desks, near the
stained glass windows with their tiny panes. The typeroom has still
some of the old fonts of type and original matrices, while the
composing and pressroom has two presses of the sixteenth century, and
many quaint and curious devices then in use. All these rooms, together
with the large state rooms, which contain the manuscripts and choicest
examples of early printing, surround a charming courtyard which is
still kept bright with flowers as it was in the days of the
founders of the great house. The City of Antwerp is justly proud of
this noble monument to its great family of great printers, which
serves to keep green the memory of their achievements and of their
fine artistic taste and skill as no other form of memorial could do.
[Illustration: ANCIENT PRINTING PRESSES AND COMPOSING CASES, PLANTIN
MUSEUM, ANTWERP.]