Christoffel Plantijn

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Christophe Plantin by Peter Paul Rubens

Christophe Plantin (in Dutch Christoffel Plantijn ) (c. 1520-1589) was an influential Renaissance humanist, book printer and publisher who was born in France (probably Touraine or Saint-Avertin, near the city of Tours), but who settled in the city of Antwerp in 1549. In 1555 he opened his own printing establishment. At the height of its success, it had 16 different presses and employed more than 80 people.

1 Early career
2 Works
3 Legacy
4 Bibliography
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Early career

He learned bookbinding and bookselling at Caen, and, having married in that town, settled in 1549 as bookbinder in Antwerp, where he was soon known as the leader of his profession. A bad wound in the arm seems to have been the cause that first led him (about 1555) to apply himself to typography. The first known book printed in his office was La Institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente, by J. M. Bruto, with a French translation, and this was soon followed by many other works in French and Latin, which in point of execution rivalled the best printing of his time, while the masters in the art of engraving then flourishing in the Netherlands illustrated many of his editions.

In 1562, Plantin himself being absent in Paris, his workmen printed a heretical pamphlet, which caused his goods to be seized and sold. It seems, however, that he recovered a great deal of the money, and in 1563 he associated himself with some friends to carry on his business on a larger scale. Among them were two grand-nephews of Daniel Bomberg, who furnished him with the fine Hebrew types of that renowned Venetian printer.

Plantin fled during the Spanish invasion of Flanders and temporarily became the official printer of the university at Leiden in the Netherlands. He returned to Antwerp in 1585 and died there in 1589.

[edit] Works

His most important work is the Biblia Regia, published between 1568 and 1572.

His editions of the Bible in Hebrew, Latin and Dutch, his Corpus juris, Latin and Greek classics, and many other works produced at this period are renowned for their beautiful execution and accuracy. A much greater enterprise was planned by him in those years—the publication of a Biblia polyglotta, which would fix the original text of Old and New Testaments on a scientific basis. In spite of clerical opposition he was supported by King Philip II of Spain, who sent him the learned Benito Arias Montano to take the leading part in the work of editorship. With his zealous help the work was finished in five years (1569-1573, 8 vols, folio). Plantin earned little profit, but received the privilege of printing all liturgical books for the states of King Philip, and the office of prototypo-graphus regius. Though outwardly a faithful son of the church, he was till his death the partisan of a mystical sect of heretics; and it is now proved that many of their books published without the name of a printer came from his presses together with the missals, breviaries, etc., for the Roman Catholic Church.

Besides the polyglot Bible, Plantin published in those years many other works of note, such as editions of St Augustine and St Jerome, the botanical works of Dodonaeus, Clusius and Lobelius, the description of the Netherlands by Guicciardini, etc. In 1575 his printing-office reckoned more than twenty presses and seventy-three workmen, besides a similar number that worked for the office at home. But in November 1576 the town was plundered and in part burnt by the Spaniards, and Plantin had to pay an exorbitant ransom. He established a branch of his office in Paris; and when in 1583 the states of Holland sought a typographer for the newly erected university at Leiden, he left his much reduced business in Antwerp to his sons-in-law John Moerentorf (Jan Moretus) and Francis van Ravelinghen (Raphelengius), and settled there.

[edit] Legacy

After his death, the company was taken over by his son-in-law, Jan Moretus. Today, the building where the company was housed is called the Plantin-Moretus Museum.

When in 1585 Antwerp was taken by the prince of Parma and affairs became more settled there, he left the office in Leiden to Raphelengius and returned to Antwerp, where he laboured till his death on 1 July 1589. His son-in-law, Moretus, and his descendants continued to print many works of note in officina Plantiniana, but from the second half of the 17th century the house began to decline. It continued, however, in the possession of the Moretus family, which left everything in the office untouched, and when in 1876 the town of Antwerp acquired the old buildings with all their contents, for 1,200,000 francs, the authorities were able with little trouble to create the Musee Plantin, opened on 19 August 1877.

[edit] Bibliography

L. Voet & J. Voet-Grisolle, The Plantin Press (1555-1589) (6 vols., Amsterdam 1980-1983)
Max Rooses, Christophe Plantin, imprimeur anversois (Antwerp, 1882)
Aug. de Backer and Ch. Ruelens, Annales plantiniennes depuis la fondation de l'imprimerie plantinienne (Brussels, 1866)
Léon Degeorge, La Maison Plantin à Anvers (2nd ed., Brussels, 1878).
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article "Christophe Plantin", a publication now in the public domain.