Plantin-Moretus Museum
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Plantin's business instinct turned his company into a thriving enterprise. In six years' time the number of presses tripled from five to sixteen. By 1575 he was running a printing empire with seventy employees.
His son-in-law, Jan Moretus, inherited the business after Plantin's death in 1589. He and his successors printed far less humanist and scientific publications. They were mainly oriented towards religious documents (promoting the catholic Counter-Reformation).
The archives of this museum were already on another Unesco list since 2001: the Memory of the World.
Early Mechanical Printing . Named after individual people . Memory of the World .
Visit July 2005
Have you been to Plantin-Moretus Museum? Share your experiences!
This museum is located in a patrician's house on a quiet square in the center of Antwerp. It really shouldn't be missed by anybody interested in history (or WHS). There's much more to see and tell than can be said on this one page.
The whole museum is excellent. I spent about two hours there doing the rounds with an audioguide. Its special attractions are threefold: a great building with period furniture, the introduction to the 16th and 17th century printing business and the priceless collection of books and prints. The Plantin-Moretus family was very wealthy and collected many original pieces (like a Gutenberg Bible).
There are about 30 rooms you can enter, ranging from libraries to the family bedroom. The craftmanship of the printing industry is detailed in a video. After that, you can amaze yourself at the collection of materials and instruments that is still there and looks like it could be working again any minute. They were printing in French, Greek, Latin, Hebrew and even Ethiopian. Mistakes were spotted by editors and then corrected before the final prints were made.
Reviews
Ian Cade (England): 
This is a truly fantastic site, sometimes I wonder about the merits of later additions to the list after some real mediocre site visits this year (Liverpool & Le Havre) however this place fully warrants its inclusion.
The building itself is pretty impressive and the level of decoration throughout is striking especially the guilt leather wall coverings. The courtyard is also very nice and many of the rooms look out onto it.
The exhibits themselves are world class, notable are; the two oldest printing presses in the world, original works of many important Humanist philosophers (of whom Justus Lipsius once worked in the house), masses of typographical matrices including originals by Garamond (it is almost certainly in your font collection on your computer still), many book decorations by family friend Rubens with their original printing plates and a 36 line Gutenberg Bible! On top of this are the entire accounts of the Officina Plantiniana starting from 1555, which are included on the UNESCO Memory of the World list in their own right. There is so much more but not enough time to list all on display.
The highlight for me was the Geographical room featuring several globes masses of maps and what is regarded as the first printed Atlas.
The thing that makes this such a special site, and a main reason ICOMOS sighted for its inclusion, is that it is all in situ, these were where most of the items displayed were conceived/ created/ printed, all in Antwerp which was a key centre of early printing.
The free audioguide was perhaps one of the best I have ever listened to and it did a fantastic job of weaving the philosophical and practical aspects of the renaissance together and illustrating their progression and contemporary relevance.
A world class site and should not be missed, it was the site with which I ‘completed’ Belgium and stands out as a highlight for me. A personal favourite UNESCO site. Date posted: October 2005
- Plantin-Moretus Museum
- Year: 2005
- Country: Belgium
- Category: Secular structure, Educational
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Reasons for inscription
News and links:
» The museum also has an official website.