The Plantin & Moretus family were the biggest names in publishing in Antwerp from the 16th - 18th centuries, when they weren't using pseudonyms, that is. But, who were they, and what about them was revolutionary?
We hope to answer that for you here.
Who was christophe plantin?
Christophe Plantin was an intellectual, a businessman and humanist. He was born in Saint-Avertin, France around 1520 and learned bookbinding and printing in Normandy, from Robert II Macé. Normandy was also where Plantin met his wife, Jeanne Rivière, and the pair married in 1545.
In 1550, Plantin and Rivière moved to Antwerp, and with the experience that Plantin gained, he opened his publishing house, alongside his Calvinist partners. At this time in history, Antwerp was a part of the Southern Netherlands and in the Netherlands, there were different ideologies at play that challenged the status quo at the time, being the Roman Catholic Church. These ideologies influenced the way Plantin ran his business and family, and turned this family business into a revolutionary dynasty still known of today.
The plantin family
Christophe Plantin and Jeanne Rivière had five daughters: Margaretha, Martine, Catharina, Magdalena and Henrica. In the 16th century, women were widely expected to take on domestic roles and be homemakers, and did not receive full educations. However, this was not necessarily the standard in the Netherlands, and certainly not case in Plantin's family. From the time his daughters were young, Plantin taught them all how to read and write in multiple languages, so they could proof read and edit what Plantin would eventually publish. He also made sure his daughters were talented seamstresses. Not so they might attract a husband, but so they could make and sell clothing should they need too. Plantin believed in developing as many of their skills as possible, and then observing how they developed to see what kind of job would suit them best.
What he published
Plantin published 1,887 major works during is 34 year career, averaging about 55 major publications per year. Among his published works, included dictionaries, religious texts, scientific texts, political texts and more.
What stood about about Plantin's dictionaries was not that he was defining words, but that his dictionaries were made to assist with learning other languages, such as translating Latin into Arabic. Publishing these dictionaries helped throw the world into globalization, and give knowledge to the people from the people, rather than from the Church.
That being said, the most famous publication of his was the Biblia Polyglotta, otherwise known as the Polyglot Bible. This bible, made up of eight volumes and was printed into five languages: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean, and Ancient Syrian. This epic publication was funded by Philip II, the (very Catholic) King of Spain, who was also the oppressor of the Southern Netherlands at the time. This epic publication earned Plantin the honorary title Arch-Printer to the King of Spain. All the while, Plantin faked his affiliation to the Catholic religion, and was publishing anti-Spanish pieces, and even became the official printer to the State's General, which is the institution that led the uprising.
In addition to going undercover and publishing pieces both for and against Spain, Plantin made a similar move with the religious texts he published. Almost acting as a double agent, Plantin published pamphlets funded by and in favor the Catholic Church, while also printing Calvinist pamphlets. To help protect his identity while publishing for both sides, he would publish the anti-Spanish and Calvinist texts under fake names.
Plantin-Moretus
Plantin worked together with his son in law, Jan I Moretus. Moretus had worked with Plantin since he was 15 years old, and later married Plantin's second eldest daughter, Martine. Though he started as a bookshops assistant, over the years and long working hours alongside Plantin, he became his second in command and good friend. In 1589, Plantin passed away, and left his business to Moretus. While there was some discourse between Moretus and other sons-in-law of Plantin over this decision, Moretus had a long career publishing around 640 editions and protecting the work Plantin left to him. Moretus passed away in 1610, and the business remained in the family until 1876, when it was sold to the city of Antwerp. Just one year later in 1877, the publishing house was reopened as a museum for the public to visit, and in 2005 this museum was the first one to be rewarded with UNESCO World Heritage Status. A truly revolutionary legacy to leave behind.
a visit to the plantin-moretus museum by sapiens travel
Our visit was designed to offer a journey back in time. Centuries before the Murdochs, there was a media empire in Northern Europe that was essential for understanding the most significant events of the pre-modern era.
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