The Golden Compasses

The History of the House of Plantin-Moretus

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(2) Overleaf: Christophe Plantin. Engraving by Joannes Wiericx, 1588. The original copperplate is also in the collection of the Plantin-Moretus Museum. With a biographical note written by Plantin's grandson Frans Raphelengius (cf. p. 5).

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Part I
The Plantin-Moretus Dynasty

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Chapter 1
Christophe Plantin, a Prince of Printers

In 1548 or 1549 Christophe Plantin, a humble French journeyman bookbinder, arrived in Antwerp with his wife Jeanne Rivière and his young daughter Margareta. He was to establish himself permanently in the city on the Scheldt and there acquire a reputation that still remains undimmed after four centuries.

Origin and youth^1.

Who was Christophe Plantin? In 1606, scarcely seventeen years after the death of the great printer, Plantin's grandson, Balthasar I Moretus, was to claim in a letter to the bishop and the chapter of Antwerp that his grandfather belonged to a ‘race illustre’, but the family fortune and estates had gone to an elder brother.^2. Names and details were given in a document of later date, preserved in the Moretus family:^3. Plantin's father was Charles de Tiercelin, lord of La Roche du Maine, a captain who had won glory and renown in battle in the service of the French kings, but had been able to bequeath little more than his fame to his descendants. Charles de Tiercelin's sons had been obliged to make their own way in life. Christophe and one of his brothers went to Normandy. Intending to practise trade, they decided to change their name so as not to disgrace their noble family.

1. Rooses, Musée, pp. 3-8; Clair, Plantin, pp. 1-6.

2. Rooses, Musée, p. 6.

3. The ‘Van der Aa document’, so called because it was found among the papers of Jonker van der Aa (died 1848), a relation of the Moretuses. Published by Van der Straelen, Geslagtlyste, p. 7; reproduced in its entirety by Rooses, Musée, pp. 5-6.

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Riding across a meadow, they let their choice of name be inspired by certain plants: Christophe chose the plantain, his younger brother the leek, called porrée in French. ‘Plantin’ became a printer, ‘Porret’ an apothecary.

All his life the printer Plantin did in fact maintain the closest relations with the apothecary Pierre Porret, each addressing the other as ‘brother’, yet Plantin's origin must nevertheless have been more workaday and plebeian than later generations of the Moretus family permitted themselves to proclaim. The descendants of the printer, having become rich, seem to have mistaken their dreams of nobility for reality.

Plantin never claimed aristocratic birth for himself; in a letter to Jean Sylvius, lord of Sapigny,^1. he soberly called himself a commoner [plebeius homo].^2. In 1550 he had himself entered on the citizens' roll of Antwerp as the equally plain and modest ‘Christoffel Plantin Janssz[one] van Tours’ [Christophe Plantin, son of Jean, of Tours].^3.

These assertions could perhaps be regarded as part of the smokescreen laid down by Plantin to protect his noble family from the shame done them by the branch that had gone into trade. Another document, however, has been preserved: a letter addressed to Christophe Plantin from none less than Pierre Porret himself, in which the latter outlines his ‘brother's’ youth - and at the same time gives details concerning his origin that sound anything but noble.

Before examining this interesting and remarkable document more closely, however, it is preferable to deal with the problem of the year and place of Plantin's birth.^4. His widow and daughters included the words ‘he lived 75 years and departed this life on 1st July 1589’ in the epitaph on his

1. [March] 1572: Corr., II, no. 322.

2. In a letter of 25th December 1580 to his daughter Magdalena (Corr., VI, no. 896), Plantin emphasized that he had never been able to depend on his parents and family: ‘Car nous n'avons jamais eu rien de nos parents que charges et cousts et si avons commencé premièrement mesnage du seul labeur de nos mains.’ [For we have never had anything from our parents but burdens and costs, and consequently we could only set up house through the labour of our own hands.]

3. Cf. further p. 12.

4. M. Rooses, ‘Plantijns geboortejaar en plaats’ in Bulletijn van de Maatschappij der Antwerpsche Bibliophilen, 2, 1882, pp. 191-202 (text incorporated in Musée). The documents given in the Appendix to this article (extracts from deeds from the Antwerp Municipal Archives referring to Plantin's age) were reprinted in Suppl. Corr., nos 278-281.

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tombstone.^1. The portrait that Jan Wiericx engraved in 1588 has ‘aet[atis] LXXIIII’, which would also make 1514 the year of Plantin's birth. But Frans Raphelengius, Plantin's grandson, was sceptical about this statement. In an interesting biographical note, written under a print of the Wiericx portrait (a note that is now in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, after passing through the hands of various families related to that of Raphelengius) he says that his grandfather was born in May 1520. But he goes on to point out that his parents and the other members of the family were convinced that his grandfather had already reached the age of 75 in 1589 - a conviction based on what Plantin himself had declared shortly before his death. Frans Raphelengius himself stuck to his first opinion, saying ‘I believe that grandfather was barely 70 years old; this is clear from numerous letters which I have had in my hands and which he wrote in his youth to Alexander Grapheus’.^2.

These letters are not extant, but on the other hand a number of deeds were discovered in the Municipal Archives at Antwerp in which Plantin stated his age - and gave figures that come close to his grandson's estimate.^3. In 1561 Plantin gave his age as 40, making 1521 the year of his birth, and in 1564 as ‘45 years or thereabouts’. In 1570 he was still 45 according to his own declaration, advancing his year of birth to 1525, but in 1572 he returned to something nearer the earlier figures, giving his age as 54 (year of birth 1518). Finally, in 1576, he quoted his age as ‘about 56 years’, which would make 1520 his year of birth.

In two other documents dated 30th April 1582^4. and 31st December 1583^5. respectively, and belonging therefore to the last few years of Plantin's life, the printer again indicated that he had been born in 1520. A portrait of Plantin by an unknown artist in the University of Leiden gives two figures that also point to 1520: ‘Anno 1584. Aetatis 64.’^6.

1. ‘Vixit Ann. LXXV, desit hic vivere Kal. Quinctil., Anno Christi MDXXCIX’. For the complete text of the epitaph, see: Rooses, Musée, p. 379.

2. Latin text: Rooses, ‘Plantijns geboortejaar en plaats’, and Rooses and Sabbe, Catalogus Museum Plantin-Moretus; French translation: Rooses, Musée, p. 3; English translation: Clair, Plantin, p. 239. Reproduction: plate 2.

3. Cf. p. 4, n. 4.

4. Corr., VII, no. 984 (Plantin's application to the Antwerp city magistrate).

5. Corr., VII, no. 1014 (Plantin's ‘Relation d'aulcuns griefz’ against Philip II), p. 132.

6. The copy after this painting, in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, gives the incorrect ‘A^o 1554 Aetatis 64’. Cf. H. Bouchery-F. van den Wijngaert, P.P. Rubens en het Plantijnsche huis, 1941, p. 22.

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Plantin himself seems thus to have had only a vague idea of his correct age, but although shortly before his death he cherished the conviction that he had been born in about 1514, in his younger years the printer had preferred dates that varied around 1520. In this case the opinion of the younger Plantin is more acceptable,^1. and for want of more positive information it should be assumed that the great printer was born in or about 1520.

Plantin's birthplace also poses a problem of historical criticism. In the Antwerp citizens' roll, Plantin registered himself as being ‘from Tours’.^2. It seems, however, that he did not mean Tours itself, but its district. Presumably Plantin, to avoid possible difficulties with the clerk who made the entry, chose to give the name of the large and well-known French city rather than the small place in its vicinity where he had actually been born. At all events Frans Raphelengius, the writer of the biographical note discussed above, in a eulogistic poem that he composed in 1584 ‘en l'effigie de mon père grand’, has his grandfather say: ‘près de Tours en Touraine a prins mon corps naissance.’^3.

But in which of the many small places around Tours was Plantin born? Frans Raphelengius, in the biographical note, mentions Chitré near Chastellerault, but follows this immediately with a hesitant ‘ut puto’ [in my opinion]. Chitré in fact lies too far from Tours to be considered, quite apart from the fact that it is in Poitou. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most biographers stated that Plantin was born in Mont-Louis, a few miles from Tours - without, however, bringing forward any proof. In the nineteenth century scholars began to show a preference for Saint-Avertin, which lies still closer to Tours, but again without advancing any decisive arguments.^4. When examination of the sixteenth-century baptismal registers of Saint-Avertin, unfortunately only preserved from 1574, yielded a rich crop of Plantins whilst not a single one was to be found in the registers of Mont-Louis, modern scholars concurred with this view.^5.

1. See also p. 120.

2. Cf. p. 12.

3. For the text of this poem see Rooses, Musée, p. 379.

4. Rooses enumerates these authors in Musée, p. 4, n. 1.

5. Rooses, Musée, p. 4.

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It may be concluded that in all probability Christophe Plantin was born in, or about, 1520 at Saint-Avertin near Tours. His father was called Jean.

This is more or less all that would be known about the first thirty years of Plantin's life were it not for the letter written by Pierre Porret on 25th March 1567 to his ‘brother’ Plantin.^1. A remarkable letter in a remarkable year. It was remarkable because, as will be discussed later in more detail, 1567 was for Plantin the ‘year of the great fear’. Compromised by his association with Calvinists, involved in an anti-Spanish press at Vianen, the printer awaited fearfully the arrival of Alva and the threatening Spanish repression. In the letters that he wrote at the time to his powerful Spanish friends, he emphasized his Catholic orthodoxy in every possible way with monotonous regularity.

It was in that same year that Pierre Porret wrote a letter to the friend of his youth in which he relates how he, Porret, extolled Plantin's Catholicism to ‘monsieur le chevallier d'Angolesme’ (Henry of Angoulême, illegitimate son of Henry II and Grand Prior of France), explaining to this dignitary the reasons for their close friendship and describing Plantin's youth in detail, particulars that he repeats at great length to his friend - to someone, that is, who was after all much better acquainted with those particulars than Porret. It is as if Porret wanted to warn his friend: ‘this is all that I have said’.

The letter no doubt had a deeper significance, but presumably more by reason of certain details that Porret withheld and that very probably related to the religious opinions of Porret and Plantin in those years, than because of any inaccuracy in the details that were furnished.^2. A number of facts,

1. Corr., I, no. 27. English translation: Clair, Plantin, pp. 236-238.

2. Plantin's biographers are practically unanimous in their surprise for this epistle. Most of them believe the piece to be relevant to the religious attitude and the perils of the young Plantin. In fact in the beginning of his letter, Pierre Porret expressly emphasized the religious aspect: ‘Mon frère, Je vous advertys que jamays monseigneur le chevallier d'Angolesme ne me rencontre qu'il ne me desmande de vos novelles, comme vous vous portés et que c'est que vous faictes. Il vous ayme grandement et qui plus l'incite à ce, c'est qu'il a bien entendu que jamais on ne vous a sceu faire trover bon ny condescendre à la novelle religion, quelque grande liberté qui se soit sceu monstrer par delà... [Plantin had saved a German servant of d'Angoulême for the Catholic religion, for which the nobleman was grateful.] Or ce n'est pas tout, car il a fallu que je luy aye récité, de point en point, la cause de nostre fraternité et si grande amytié, et comme nous avons estés nouris ensemble dès la grande jeunesse.’ [My brother, I must inform you that my lord of Angoulême never meets me without asking me for news of you, how you are, and what you are doing. He has great affection for you and what most encourages him in this is the fact that he understands full well that you have never been known to approve of or stoop to the new religion, whatever great liberty has been manifested in those parts... Now this is not all for I have had to account to him, in all particulars, the reason for our brotherliness and great friendship, and how we were brought up together from our earliest childhood.]

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including some concerning Porret's relations at Lyons and Plantin's stay in Caen, can be checked against other sources; they have been found correct.^1.

What did Porret write to Plantin concerning his friend's youth?^2. Plantin's father was a footman. Fleeing from the plague that had decimated his household - and, as far as can be made out from the context, had carried off Plantin's mother^3. - he made his way to Lyons with his only surviving child and there entered the service of Claude Porret, the aged obedientiary of the church of Saint-Just, whom Jean Plantin had already served at the university. This person was actually Antoine Porret, according to documents from Lyons.^4. Pierre Porret was a nephew of this ‘Claude’ Porret, in whose house he came to know Plantin and to love him as a brother.

‘Claude’ Porret had four other nephews, his sister's sons, whom he brought up in his house. One of these, Pierre Puppier, went to study at the universities of Orleans and Paris and was accompanied by Jean Plantin and his son. This was the end of Christophe Plantin's Lyons period, which must have been very short. No more than a child when he arrived at

1. Or at least partly correct: Pierre Porret made some extraordinary mistakes when giving the names of his relations at Lyons.

2. For the Lyons period see V.L. Saulnier, ‘Sur le séjour à Lyon de Christophe Plantin’ in Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 18, 1956, pp. 96-100. A more detailed account is N.Z. Davis, ‘Christophe Plantin's childhood at Saint-Just’ in De Gulden Passer, 35, 1957, pp. 107-120.

3. ‘C'est celluy [= Pierre Puppier] que vous avés servi à Paris et Orléans, lorsque feu vostre père vous amena chez ledict seigneur obédiencier, fuiant la peste quand tous mouroient en vostre maison.’

4. As is explained - independently of one another - by Saulnier and Davis. Pierre Porret made another mistake of this sort: he called Antoine Puppier the husband of ‘Claude’ Porret's sister, whereas in the Lyons documents the father of Pierre Porret's cousins is given as Mathieu Puppier. However, this mistake is more understandable than the incorrect reporting of the name of the uncle with whom Pierre himself had lived so long. As Davis, op. cit., p. 109, puts it: ‘The latter's name [i.e. Mathieu Puppier] he might forget over the years, but to forget Antoine Porret - an odd slip of the pen!’

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Saint-Just,^1. he seems to have stayed only for two or three years in Antoine Porret's house.^2.

When Pierre Puppier had taken his doctor's degree and had become a canon, Plantin's father left the French capital and returned to Lyons ‘en atendant qu'il iroit à Tolouze’, presumably to accompany another Puppier to the university there.

He left his son in Paris with some money to continue his studies. His intention had been to take the boy with him to Toulouse: ‘mays il s'en alla sans vous’.^3. Without pausing to elaborate on the drama of the young Plantin,^4. left behind in Paris with insufficient means and quite alone, Porret continues in his imperturbable manner: ‘...ce que voyant, vous vous en allastes à Caen servir un libraire et puys, quelques ans après, vous vous mariastes audict lieu et moy je me mys aprentif appotiquère. Puys vous amenastes vostre mesnage en ceste ville, où nous avons tousjours estés ensemble et, en l'an 1548 ou 1549, vous allastes à Anvers où vous estes encore’ [Seeing this, you went to Caen and entered the service of a bookseller and then, after some years, you were married in that town and I was bound apprentice to an apothecary. Then you brought your family to this city of Paris, where we were constantly in each other's company and, in the year 1548 or 1549, you went to Antwerp, where you are still].

Thus Porret supplies quite a few interesting details but, whether deliberately or not, he suppresses at least as many. Why, for example, did Plantin's

1. ‘Vous estiés bien jeune [i.e. when Plantin arrived in Lyons] et n'aviés aulcune cognoissance de jamais avoyr veu vostre mère.’

2. Continuation of text in preceding note: ‘Nous feusmes deux ou troys ans ensemble chez mondict oncle, avant que monsieur le docteur Pierre Puppier allast [accompanied by the Plantins, father and son] à Orléans.’

3. ‘Je luy ay recité comme, après que son maistre fust chanoyne, il [i.e. Plantin's father] se retira à Lion et vous laissa icy, en ceste ville [Paris], quelque peu d'argent pour vous entertenir à l'estude en atendant qu'il iroit à Tolouze, là où il vous debvoit mener. Mays il s'en alla sans vous, ce que voyant, vous vous en allastes à Caen...’ [I have told him how, after his master became a canon, he went back to Lyons and left you here in this town, with a little money to support you in your studies, until such time as he should go to Toulouse, where he was to take you. But he went there without you. Seeing this you went to Caen...]

4. Pierre Puppier became a canon in October 1534, but relinquished the post in the same month. In March 1537 he once more became a canon, this time for good. Pierre Puppier and Plantin's father could therefore have returned to Lyons either in 1534 or 1537. The latter date seems more likely. Plantin would then have been about seventeen.

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father behave in this extraordinary fashion? A father who otherwise appears to have surrounded his child with every care, and who is depicted as a kindly man: the young Porret testified how he was always slipping him delicacies. Why did this solicitous father abandon his son? And what happened to father Plantin subsequently? Porret merely mentioned in passing that in 1567 Christophe Plantin had not yet been able to fulfil his desire of visiting his father's grave in Lyons. Apparently this was where Jean Plantin was buried and from the context it also appears that he must have died before 1562.^1. Most important of all, why did Christophe choose not to remain in the printing centre of Paris and instead go to Caen?

These are probably questions to which it will never be possible to give conclusive answers. At all events two other sources confirm that Christophe Plantin was certainly active in Caen. They even give the name of his master, Robert II Macé, who lived from 1503 to 1563,^2. and they state that it was in Macé's house that Plantin came to know Jeanne Rivière, the Norman girl who became his faithful life's partner.^3. It is often implied that Plantin learnt printing from Robert Macé, although until about 1550 his employer was simply a bookseller and bookbinder.^4. In his early years in Antwerp,

1. ‘Il y a quelques ans que vous parliez d'aller revisiter la sépulture de feu vostre père et luy faire un service, mays vous auriés bien affaire, à présent, de trouver le lieu où il a esté enterré.’ [Several years ago you spoke of revisiting your late father's grave and of having a service read for him, but you would be hard put to it now to find the place where he is buried.] This was because of the destruction of the churches of St. Just and Ste. Irénée by Huguenots in 1562, which Porret had related earlier in his letter. There was in fact a cousin of Plantin still living in Lyons in 1567: ‘J'ay esté despuys quelques moys à Lion où vis je vostre cousin Jacques Plantin, fort vieux et quy jamays n'a proffité despuys qu'il a veu le ravage, de quoy ces mauldis rebelles... ont faict à St. Just et St. Liévin [error for Ste. Irénée].’ [I was in Lyons a few months ago where I saw your cousin Jacques Plantin, who is now very old and has never prospered since he saw the havoc which these accursed rebels... wrought at St. Just and Ste. Irénée.]

2. Joannes Ruxelius, Poemata, Caen, 1646, p. 193. The Latin text is in Rooses, Musée, p. 379; partly translated into French in Rooses, Musée, p. 7; partly translated into English in Clair, Plantin, pp. 239-240. The Van der Aa document (cf. p. 3, n. 3) similarly makes mention of Plantin's stay with a bookseller in Caen, but does not give his name.

3. A detail furnished by the not always very trustworthy Van der Aa document. Jeanne Rivière did have a brother who lived in Caen or its neighbourhood, and a cousin, Guillaume Rivière, a journeyman printer at Plantin's officina, who was born in Caen or its environs. See pp. 139-140, for Plantin's wife, her origin, and family.

4. V.L. Saulnier, ‘L'humanisme français et Plantin’ in Gedenkboek der Plantin-dagen 1555-1955, p. 45, note 2. It is interesting to note that whereas Ruxelius represented Robert Macé as ‘the King's printer’ (and the first in Normandy and Brittany to print books with metal type), who initiated his apprentice Plantin into the secrets of the art of printing, the otherwise unreliable Van der Aa document merely describes Plantin's employer as a bookseller and bookbinder of Caen: ‘Ores, Christofle Plantin estant à Can se mit au service d'un libraire qui ensemble estoit relieur; là, où il aprint à relier de livres et de faire de petits coffres pour garder des joyaux, ce qu'il fist en ce temps-là si curieusement que tout le monde estimoit ce qu'estoit faict de sa main.’

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Plantin did in fact practise the trade of bookbinding, and it was this craft, rather than printing, that he must have learnt from Macé.

The chronology of this part of Plantin's career can be reconstructed roughly as follows: in 1534 or 1537, as a boy of about 14 or as a youth of about 17 years of age, he was left behind alone in Paris; shortly afterwards he made his way to Caen where, in 1545 or 1546 he must have married Jeanne Rivière, who presented him with a daughter in 1547; in 1546 or 1547 he probably returned to Paris,^1. and finally, in 1548 or 1549, at the age of about 28 or 29, he left the banks of the Seine for those of the Scheldt.

1. Nothing is known with certainty concerning this stay in Paris. Rooses (and others) have indicated that Plantin then became the owner of the house called Saint-Christophe in the rue Saint-Jean-de-Latran. This would mean that the young, newly-wed printer was already a man of ample means. But Clair, in Plantin, p. 7, has convincingly shown that this supposition is based on a misconception.

The bookbinder Plantin in Antwerp (1548/49-1555)^2.

According to Pierre Porret's statement in his letter of 25th March 1567, Plantin settled in Antwerp in 1548 or 1549. Balthasar I Moretus, however, in a letter of 1604, mentions only 1549, and most scholars, beginning with Max Rooses and Maurice Sabbe, have simply left it at that.

In recent years a document has been brought to light in the Antwerp Municipal Archives in which ‘Christoffel Plantyn Janssz. van Tours en Franche, boeckbindere’ declared that he had already resided in the town for four years.^3. The document is dated 11th July 1552, which would put Plantin's arrival in the first half of 1548. It has already been shown, however, that Plantin was often confused about dates, and in the case in point - because of the war with France, French residents in Antwerp were under-

2. Rooses, Musée, pp. 11-14.

3. Suppl. Corr., no. 227.

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going investigation - it was rather in the interest of those questioned to exaggerate a little the length of their stay in the town on the Scheldt. The author is inclined to adopt Pierre Porret's cautious statement that Plantin arrived in Antwerp with his family in 1548 or 1549.

On 21st March 1550, ‘Christophe Plantin, son of John, of Tours, bookbinder’, having taken the prescribed oath, was registered as a citizen of Antwerp.^1. In the same year he was admitted - as a printer - to the Guild of St. Lake,^2. the corporation that in Antwerp included the practitioners of the various artistic crafts.

Christophe Plantin had come to feel at home in Antwerp. Except during the troubled period of 1583 to 1585, and his retirement to Paris in 1562-63, he never left ‘la preclara et famosa città, la bella, nobilissima et amplissima città’ as Ludovico Guicciardini, with Southern exuberance, expressed it, or, as Plantin himself rather more soberly put it,^3. ‘ceste noble et renommée ville d'Anvers’. He sang the praises of the metropolis many times, as proudly as any native Sinjoor:

Au prudent Senat,
Et Peuple d'Anvers,
Christophle Plantin.
C'est grand honneur, Messieurs, de voir tant d'estrangers
Des quatre Parts du Monde (avec mille dangers)
Apporter ce qu'ils ont d'esprit et de puissance
Pour rendre vostre ville un Cornet d'abundance...

[Christophe Plantin, to the wise Senate and People of Antwerp. It is a great honour, Sirs, to see so many strangers come from the four corners of the Earth, despite a thousand perils, to bring what they possess of wisdom and of

1. Suppl. Corr., no. 226.

2. P. Rombouts-T. van Lerius, De liggeren... der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, I, p. 170. It is rather strange that the bookbinder Plantin should have been entered as a printer. It is possible that he requested this, his ambition being to become a printer. It is by no means impossible, however, that the entries in the ledger of the Guild for the year 1550 were written down at a later date, when Plantin had already established himself as a printer.

3. In a letter to de Çayas, 19th December 1566 (Corr., I, no. 20).

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power to make your town a cornucopia]. Plantin wrote his poem in the preface to the French edition of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1581) by his friend Abraham Ortelius.^1.

The Frenchman Plantin became wholly assimilated in the life of Antwerp. But why did he venture on this great step, turning his back both on Paris, the French magnet, and on Lyons, that other important printing centre where he had spent his youth, choosing instead the Brabantine town on the Scheldt? In a letter to Pope Gregory XIII dated 9th October 1574, he set out his reasons in detail:^2. ‘If I had taken only my personal interests into account, I could have secured for myself the benefits that were offered me in other countries and cities. I preferred Belgium (Belgica regio) and this city of Antwerp, however, before all others as a place in which to establish myself. What chiefly inspired this choice is that in my judgement no other place in the world could furnish more convenience for the trade I wished to practise. This city is easy of access; one sees the various nations congregating in the market-place, and here all the materials necessary for the practice of my craft are to be obtained; workers for all trades, who can be taught in a short time, are easily found; above all else I noticed, to the satisfaction of my religious belief, that this city and the whole country surrounding it far excel all neighbouring peoples in their great love for the Catholic religion, under the sceptre of a king who is Catholic in name and deed; finally it is in this country that the renowned University of Louvain flourishes, graced in all faculties by the knowledge of her many professors, of whose guidance, counsel and works I hoped to avail myself to the great benefit of the public.’

Naturally this letter should be considered critically. Plantin was in fact repeatedly requested by kings and princes to settle in their realms - after he had acquired international fame at Antwerp. But in 1548 or 1549 the Plantin who, after weighing up the pros and cons, decided to make his way to that city was no more than a small insignificant unit in the great anonymous mass of competent, and less competent, craftsmen. The man who wrote to Pope Gregory XIII was someone who had ‘arrived’ and was seeing his early years in the distorting mirror of success. It can also be

1. Reproduced: Suppl. Corr., no. 274. See also plate 16.

2. Corr., IV, no. 566.

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assumed that the religious motives are rather too strongly stressed - which is only normal in a letter addressed to the head of Roman Catholic Christendom.

Nevertheless the main reasons why Plantin ventured to Antwerp are indicated plainly enough: no other town in the world offered more opportunities to ambitious young men than the commercial metropolis of the West - capital and money-lenders, a network of communications that covered the globe, and experienced craftsmen in large numbers.^1.

Yet even in Antwerp the way up was long and hard. Plantin had to take things steadily at first. He soon made friends and acquaintances, however, and just as quickly acquired a reputation for the quality of his work. In 1604, in the letter that has been cited above, Balthasar Moretus described the early years of the young bookbinder's career to the Jesuit writer Egidius Schoondonck:^2. ‘When the late Christophe Plantin came to Antwerp from France in 1549, he was at first engaged in bookbinding and making small chests and boxes, which he covered with leather and gilded, or wondrously inlaid with small pieces of leather of different colours. No one equalled him in the making of such caskets, neither in Antwerp nor in the Netherlands. Thus he soon won fame with Mercury and the Muses, that is to say amongst the merchants and the scholars who, going frequently to the Exchange, in the vicinity of which Plantin lived, or coming from thence, were obliged to look at his wares. The scholars bought elegantly bound

1. Naturally other motives could also have played some part in this. In Christophe Plantin, imprimeur de l'humanisme, 1944, p. 8, A.J.J. Delen suggests that Plantin made friends among the South Netherlands colony in Paris who may well have persuaded him to try his luck in their country. Sabbe, in De meesters van den Gulden Passer, p. 11, is of the opinion that Plantin and his wife were not satisfied with the way their affairs were going in Paris and wanted to see if they would fare any better in more favourable surroundings. In his Plantin, pp. 8-9, Clair lays more stress on political and religious factors. Henry II had taken energetic measures against Protestantism in France, whereby a particularly careful watch was kept on the printers and publishers; this stringent control pressed heavily on the industry. This suggestion is, however, difficult to accept: the struggle against heresy and the control of printing was much severer in the Netherlands of Charles V than in the France of Henry II. Plantin was not in fact a printer at this time but a bookbinder.

2. Arch. 12, folio 266. Cf. M. Rooses, ‘Eene bladzijde uit het verloren handschrift van: “Admiranda hujus saeculi”’ in Bulletijn van de Maatschappij der Antwerpsche Bibliophilen, 1, 1882, pp. 92-97. The facts are also quoted in Rooses, Musée, pp. 12-13 and pp. 379-380 (an edition of the Latin text of the letter).

[p. 15]

books, the merchants caskets or other precious things that he made himself or had sent from France.’

As evidence, this enthusiastic eulogizing by a grandson is of course rather suspect. Nevertheless it is a very significant fact that in this period the magistrate of Antwerp gave Plantin many municipal registers to bind^1. and that the town recorder (griffier), Alexander Grapheus, gave him numerous commissions and even appears to have advanced him money to open a shop.^2. A number of beautifully bound volumes have been preserved which were made in Antwerp in this period. Experts have put forward quite convincing arguments for ascribing these to the young Frenchman.^3. Plantin must have been a master craftsman in leather.

1. Rooses, Musée, p. 12 (details for the years 1552 and 1553, taken from the municipal accounts). The City Archives have also the copy of a contract, dated 1553, in which Robert van Loo was placed by his father in Plantin's care as an apprentice for a term of eight years (Ibidem, p. 12).

2. According to the Van der Aa document (cf. p. 3, n. 3): ‘Estant mariés ils vinrent à Anvers avec le peu de livrets de prières et semblables choses, et mirent une petite boitique (le mari des livres, et la femme des linges) dessus la bourse des marchands, la ou ils gagnerent quelque temps leur vie assez sobrement. Il advint par après que le Sr. Scribonius Grapheus, en ce temps la greffier de la ville d'Anvers, se plaisant fort à la curiosité de la ligature de Plantin, le fit relier tous ses livres, et l'avanca et l'ayda en luy prestant quelques deniers de sorte, qu'il vint à tenir une boutique au logis qu'à présent se nomme la Rose près l'église des Augustins à Anvers.’ [Being married they came to Antwerp with a few prayerbooks and similar items and set up a small shop (the husband selling books, the wife selling lace) above the merchants' Exchange. Here they earned a modest living. A little later it happened that Scribonius Grapheus, at that time the griffier (town recorder) of Antwerp, being very pleased with the curiosity of Plantin's bindings, had him bind all his books and helped him by lending him some money, so that he came to keep a shop in the house which is now called the Rose, near the Augustinian church in Antwerp.] This last detail is wrong. Plantin never lived near the Augustinian church. However, in later years the printer does seem to have maintained very friendly relations with the griffier, Alexander Grapheus (cf. the quotation from the younger Frans Raphelengius concerning Plantin's numerous letters to this official; see also p. 369). There is also reference in one of these letters to the help Grapheus had once offered Plantin: ‘Imo ego ingratiss. essem Graphee doctiss. nisi quibus possem argumentis declararem quantum ab eo tempore quo primum in has regiones appuli me isto tuo animi candori et liberalitati debere fateor et agnoscam.’ [Firstly I would be most ungrateful to you most learned Grapheus if I did not demonstrate by all possible proofs how great is the acknowledged debt I owe to your sincerity and generosity of spirit to me at that time when I first came to these regions.] (Plantin to Grapheus, 11th July 1574: Corr., IV, no. 541.)

3. Concerning Plantin and the bookbindings which he made or which were attributed to him see: Rooses, Musée, p. 12; L. Gruel, ‘Notice sur Christophe Plantin, relieur à Anvers (1514-1590)’ in Journal général de l'imprimerie et de la librairie, Paris, 1891, pp. 213-216; P. Verheyden, ‘Plantijnsche bandmerken’ in Tijdschrift voor Boek- en Bibliotheekwezen, 8, 1910, pp. 263-265; J. Rudbeck, ‘Christophe Plantin relieur’ in Sept études publiées à l'occasion du 4^e centenaire de Chr. Plantin, 1920, pp. 65-72; M. Sabbe, ‘Een Plantijnsch Bandje?’ in Het Boek, 11, 1922, pp. 209-212; P. Högberg, ‘Reliures belges à l'Université d'Upsal’ in De Gulden Passer, 5, 1925, pp. 1-3; P. Verheyden, ‘Twee banden van Plantijn voor Keizer en Prins’ in De Gulden Passer, 15, I937, pp. 107-119 (cf. also Bulletin van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België, 6, no. 5, 5th May 1962); J. Peeters-Fontainas, ‘Encore une reliure attribuée à Plantin’ in De Gulden Passer, 16-17, 1938-1939, pp. 28-30; I. Schunke, ‘Die Einbände des Christoph Plantin’ in Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 1956, pp. 319-330, and ‘Plantin und die niederländische Einbandkunst seiner Zeit’ in De Gulden Passer, 37, 1959, pp. 122-141; G. Colin, ‘A propos d'une reliure de Plantin’ in Studi di Bibliografia e di Storia in onore di Tammaro de Marinis, II, Verona, 1964, pp. 1-14, and ‘Une ode à Philippe II, écrite, imprimée et reliée par Plantin’ in De Gulden Passer, 43, 1965, pp. 65-91; W. Godenne, Les reliures de Plantin, 1965.

[p. 16]

At the same time he was trying to augment his income. Plantin, ‘lyeur des livres et marchant, bourgeois manant de la ville d'Anvers’ [bookbinder and merchant, citizen of the town of Antwerp] concluded a contract on 14th March 1553 with Lambert Suavius, ‘architecteur de la cité de Liège’ for the purchase of 100 copies of the Acts of the Apostles at 10 stuivers each:^1. at this date the bookbinder was already buying and selling engravings and it is possible that he was also selling books, albeit on a modest scale.^2. Another trade, which did not demand too much of his time, probably brought in welcome extra money too. At least from 1556 onwards, Plantin acted as agent for his Parisian friend Pierre Gassen, ‘lingier de Messieurs, frères du Roi’, collecting the lace delivered by small manufacturers and sending it on to the French capital.^3. It is possible that he also did this in the period 1549 to 1555, if not for Pierre Gassen, then for other principals in Paris. At all events, it is stated that his wife owned a lace shop at this time.^4.

He was established at first in the Lombaardvest; somewhat later, at least from 1552, ‘in the street running from the new Exchange to the Meir, on the west side’; this is the present Twaalfmaandenstraat, the small street that

1. Suppl. Corr., no. 228. Cf. Rooses, Musée, p. 12; A.J.J. Delen, ‘Christoffel Plantin als prentenhandelaar’ in De Gulden Passer, 10, 1932, pp. 22-23.

2. As is stated in the Van der Aa document; cf. p. 15, n. 2.

3. M. Risselin-Steenebrugen, ‘Christophe Plantin facteur en lingeries fines et en dentelles’ in De Gulden Passer, 37, 1959, pp. 74-111. Plantin conducted this trade until 1574, but as time went on he transferred more and more of the responsibility to his daughters. Cf. pp. 143 and 145-146.

4. Van der Aa document: cf. the text on p. 15, n. 2.

[p. *1]

(3) Opposite: Bookbinding ascribed to Christophe Plantin. Morocco on board for a special edition (printed on blue paper) of Plantin's first book, Bruto's La institutione di una fanciulla... (1555). Preserved in the Plantin-Moretus Museum.

[p. *2]

[p. *3]

[p. *4]

(6) Pages from Bruto's La institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente, the first book Plantin printed (1555).

[p. 17]

still leads from the Exchange to the Meir.^1. The new citizen of Antwerp was awaiting his opportunity. Then, in 1555, came the great turning point in his career. Plantin would then have been about 35 years old.

1. Concerning Plantin's houses, see pp. 260 sqq.

The turning point: the bookbinder becomes a printer (1555)

On 5th April 1555 de la Torre, Secretary to the Privy Council, put his elegantly flourished signature on the act giving an answer ‘sur la remonstrance faicte au privé conseil de l'empereur nostre Signeur de la part de Christoffle Plantin, imprimeur et libraire juré, résident en ceste ville d'Anvers’. The applicant obtained permission to print, or have printed: ‘Le premier, l'Institution d'une fille noble par Jehan Michiel Bruto; le second, Flores de Seneca et le III^e, le premier volume de Roland furieux, traduit d'italien en francois.’^2.

Only a few weeks before the Council of Brabant had granted Plantin a commission as a printer,^3. and only a few weeks later, Plantin's first edition left his new printing-presses: La Institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente; l'Institution d'une fille de noble maison,^4. a manual in Italian and French on the

2. Arch. 1179, no. 1. For the text of this official permission see Rooses, Musée, p. 17. Reproduction: see plate 8.

3. On 18th February 1555, entered into the register on 30th March. This reference was recently found by Dr. L. van den Branden in the Central Archives at Brussels, Chambre des Comptes, 20, 790; Accounts for 1554-55, f^o; 18^ro.

4. It is generally believed that the ‘privilege’ of 5th April 1555 is the first of its kind to be applied for and obtained by Plantin, and that the first work mentioned - Bruto's Institutione - must be regarded as the first book Plantin printed. In fact this is not certain. Some of the known facts do indicate that the works listed in this document were the first to come from Plantin's press. In the copy of the Institutione offered to Grammay, Plantin states quite definitely that this was the ‘first fruit from the garden of my press’. In his memoirs, the Spanish humanist Juan Martin Cordero is equally emphatic that the Flores de L. Anneo Seneca (the second work mentioned in the document of 5th April 1555), which he had translated from Latin into his mother-tongue, was Plantin's first impression (Peeters-Fontainas, ‘Extrait des mémoires de Jean-Martin Cordero de Valence’ in De Gulden Passer, 31, 1953, p. 79). Cordero's statement can perhaps be taken to mean that although the Institutione was the first book Plantin printed, it was actually published by Bellerus, and the Flores was Plantin's first publication and the first book to carry his printer's mark. (In fact, Cordero was wrong in stating that Plantin printed the Flores; according to the type used the work was done by another printer.) The two statements together make it more than likely that Plantin's career as printer and publisher began with these two works. Clair's supposition that Plantin had printed other books before these is not supported by any positive evidence. (‘It is perhaps advisable to say that this book [the Institutione] was Plantin's first effort as a master printer, since there is a possibility that it was by no means the first book he printed in Antwerp. I consider that for at least a year previously he may have worked as a journeyman for Jean Bellère [Bellerus], and may even have been in partnership with him’: Clair, Plantin, pp. 15-16.)

[p. 18]

education of young ladies of noble birth, by the itinerant Venetian humanist Giovanni Michele Bruto, who was then staying in Antwerp.^1.

Plantin offered a copy to Gerard Grammay, the receveur (tax-collector) of Antwerp, with a specially printed inscription addressed to this powerful and influential person: ‘Suivant la coustume d'un jardinier ou laboureur, qui pour singulier présent, offre à son signeur les primières fleurs des jeunes Plantes de son jardin ou métairie je vous présente cestuy primier bourjon sortant du jardin de mon Imprimerie...’^2. The young Frenchman had started on the road that was to lead him to renown and immortality.

The idea of becoming a printer had undoubtedly been in Plantin's mind from the beginning. It was probably no momentary aberration that caused the bookbinder to have himself enrolled in the Guild of St. Luke in 1550 as a printer; it must have been a concrete expression of his ambition.^3. Within a mere five years Plantin was able to realize this dream, in circumstances that have never been fully explained. Balthasar I Moretus, in his letter of 1604 to Egidius Schoondonck^4. that has been quoted earlier in the chapter, gives the official family version of this turning point in Plantin's career: ‘When he had practised this craft and this trade (i.e. bookbinding and the manufacture of caskets) for some years, Gabriel de Çayas, the secretary of Philip II, learned to know and to love this able man, and as he wished to send a jewel of great value to the Queen of Spain, he ordered a casket from Plantin in which to place this precious stone. A few days later, de Çayas commanded Plantin to complete the casket and to bring it to his house that evening, as he had to send it by messenger to Spain early the next morning. Plantin did not neglect his task and towards nightfall he went out, accom-

1. Concerning Bruto and his work, see M. Battistini, ‘Jean Michel Bruto, humaniste, historiographe, pédagogue au XVI^e siècle’ in De Gulden Passer, 32, 1954, pp. 29-156. A facsimile edition of the Institutione was published in 1954 under the auspices of the ‘Vereeniging der Antwerpsche Bibliophielen’.

2. This copy is in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris. See Anvers, ville de Plantin et de Rubens, Catalogue de l'exposition... Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, 1954, no. 271. Cf. Rooses, Musée, p. 18.

3. Another explanation, however, is possible: p. 12, n. 2.

4. Cf. p. 14, n. 2.

[p. 19]

panied by a lad to light his way; he himself clasped the box under his arm. He had just left the street near the Exchange where he lived, which led to the Meir Bridge, and had come to that familiar place where the crucifix now stands, when some drunken men in masks bore down upon him. They were looking for a zither player who had made fools of them and hurled I know not what gibe at them. Seeing Plantin, who was carrying a box, they thought they had found the man they were seeking and who had a zither under the arm. One of them immediately drew his dagger and followed after Plantin. Full of fear, the latter fled to some steps where he set down the casket and at the same moment felt himself stabbed by this villain; and so violently that the assailant had difficulty in withdrawing his deep-thrust dagger from the body of his victim. Plantin, a touching example of steadfastness and forbearance, spoke peaceably to these men: “Gentlemen, you are mistaken. What harm have I done you?” And they, hearing the voice of a peaceful man, ran away, crying as they fled that they had set upon the wrong man. Sick and half dead, Plantin returned home. Joannes Farinalius, a surgeon who was famous in those days, and Goropius Becanus, a physician of great repute, were called: both despaired of his recovery; but the Almighty preserved him beyond all expectation for the common good, and slowly he was healed. As he no longer felt strong enough for a trade in which there is much stooping and movement of the body, there came to him the idea of setting up a printing-press. He had often seen printing carried out in France, and had done it himself. With his native shrewdness he started the business, guiding and directing it with such understanding, with God's help, that even the earliest beginnings of this press were admired, not only in the Netherlands but throughout the world.’

In 1567 Plantin himself alluded to this attack and - in a condensed form that would be practically incomprehensible without the detailed account in his grandson's letter - gave the same version of it. In the letter, ‘Aux prudens et experts maistres d'écolles et tous autres qui s'employent a enseigner la langue françoise’, included in La première et la seconde partie des dialogues françois pour les ieunes enfans,^1. published in 1567, Plantin gives an autobiographical note in verse form:

1. Reproduced: Suppl. Corr., no. 264.

[p. 20]

 

Vray est que de nature

 

I'ay aymé l'écriture,

 

Des mots sententieux:

 

Mais l'Alciate pierre

 

M'a retenu en terre,

 

Pour ne voler aux cieux.

 

Cela voyant, i'ay le mestier éleu,

 

Qui m'a nourri en liant des volumes.

 

L'estoc receu puis apres m'a émeu

 

De les écrire à la presse sans plumes.^1.

Both Plantin and his grandson, however, leave one very important point out of their accounts: where did the bookbinder obtain the capital to set up as a printer? In the sixteenth century establishing an officina did not demand the investment of an excessive sum of money, but by the same token considerable amounts were needed to keep the business going. Plantin could have earned and saved enough during his stay in Antwerp to provide himself with a printing-press and other equipment. But how did he manage for the working capital that he needed in order to buy paper and other materials, to pay his employees, and to begin on new books while waiting for some return on the money he had already invested in previous editions to come trickling back?

The account of the attack on Plantin (in 1554 or early 1555) is undoubtedly correct. The fact that his physical powers were curtailed would certainly have led him to choose a less strenuous occupation - even though he seems to have been binding books again as early as 1555, but presumably at a less wearing pace than before.^2. The question of how he came by the capital to see him through this difficult period, however, remains an open one.

The Moretus family must have asked themselves this question in later years. They found an answer. In the same document that represented Plantin as the scion of a noble house, the story is told in detail of how the bookbinder recognized his assailants and forced them to pay him substantial damages. The money enabled him to set up as a printer.^3. The document contains so many inaccuracies and so many apocryphal elements, that this

1. The same year in a letter to H. Niclaes (Corr., I, no. 74), Plantin makes a casual remark about ‘his old wounds’: ‘...et continué le train qui se porte fort bien, grâces à Dieu, ne fust ces vieilles playes susdictes, qui de rechef viennent à me remectre en soing.’

2. Cf. Arch. 38, passim and in vol. II, the chapter on bookbindings. See also Sabbe, De meesters van den Gulden Passer, 1937, p. 18.

3. Van der Aa document: cf. p. 3, n. 3. Clair in Plantin, p. 241, points out that in the British Museum copy of Plantin's Index Librorum, 1575, the previous owner had inserted a note beginning ‘A mon passage à Anvers en 1817 une personne, non pas de la descendance directe de Plantin, mais cependant bien appartenant à sa famille, m'a communiqué une anecdote fort curieuse qui fait connaître comment Plantin est devenu imprimeur’. [While I was passing through Antwerp in 1817, a person, not directly descended from Plantin but belonging to the family, related a very strange anecdote to me which reveals how Plantin became a printer.] The anecdote relates the story of the attack and states that Plantin was able to set himself up as a printer with the compensation paid by the father of one of his youthful assailants.

[p. 21]

explanation could only be accepted if there were confirmation from other sources - and such sources are lacking.

Another document puts a totally different complexion on the matter, implying that the career of Plantin the printer had its beginnings in the religious outlook of Plantin the man.

Plantin the heretic^1.

This revealing document is the Chronika des Hüsgesinnes der Lieften [Chronicle of the Household of Love], the manuscript chronicle, written in a Westphalian dialect, of the religious sect called ‘The House of Love’ (known in

1. F. Nippold, in his biography of the founder of the Family of Love, ‘Heinrich Niclaes und das Haus der Liebe’ in Zeitschrift für historische Theologie, 1862, pp. 323-402, 473-562, was the first to draw attention to Plantin's religious outlook, followed by C.A. Tiele, ‘Christophe Plantin et le sectaire mystique Henrik Niclaes’, in Le Bibliophile belge, 3, 1868, pp. 121-129. M. Rooses placed it in the context of Plantin's life-story (Musée, pp. 33-54). The letters which Plantin and Coornhert exchanged dealt partly with religious questions. B. Becker publishəd a study of this correspondence, ‘Thierry Coornhert et Christophe Plantin’ in De Gulden Passer, 1, 1923, pp. 97-123. M. Sabbe discussed the remarkable Barrefelt-Plantin-Arias Montanus relationship in ‘Hoe stond Benedictus Arias Montanus tegenover de leeringen van Hendrik Jansen Barrefelt (Hiël)?’ in De Moretussen en hun kring, 1928, pp. 27-51. French translation: ‘Les rapports entre B. Arias Montanus et Jansen Barrefelt (Hiël)’ in De Gulden Passer, 4, 1926, pp. 19-43; Spanish translation: ‘Arias Montano y Barrefelt (Hiël y la teologia ortodoxa)’ in Revista del Centro de Estudios Extremenos, 8, 1934, pp. 63-92. Of particular interest (especially for Plantin's relations with Niclaes) is H. Bouchery's ‘Aanteekeningen betreffende Christoffel Plantin's houding op godsdienstig en politiek gebied’ in De Gulden Passer, 18, 1940, pp. 87-141. Two articles by H. de la Fontaine Verwey should also be consulted: ‘De geschriften van H. Niclaes’ in Het Boek, 26, 1940-1942, pp. 161-221; ‘Trois hérésiarques dans les Pays-Bas du xvi^e siècle’ in Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 16, 1954, pp. 312-330 (a very comprehensive and readable survey of three religious leaders, including Niclaes and Barrefelt, their teaching, following and influence). In his Benito Arias Montano, 1527-1598. Studie over een groep spiritualistische humanisten in Spanje en de Nederlanden op grond van hun briefwisseling, 1961, B. Rekers discusses spiritual life in the Netherlands in the context of a biography of Arias Montanus. Plantin's attitude is dealt with in great detail. Rekers's work is remarkable in that he Spanish theologian, hitherto depicted as a thoroughly orthodox figure, is here shown as someone who in his later years was on the slippery slope of heresy. However, this work contains so much carelessness, and so many erroneous suppositions and hastily drawn conclusions that its value is seriously in doubt. It should be consulted with caution and circumspection.

[p. 22]

England as the ‘Family of Love’).^1. The founder and the leader of the sect was Hendrik Niclaes.

The compiler of the chronicle, a certain Daniel, appears to have known Plantin well, but to have been ill-disposed towards him. He relates how the Frenchman had learnt Dutch after his arrival in Antwerp, had studied the writings of Hendrik Niclaes, and had become a member of his ‘Family’. For the sake of safety this ‘prophet’ had withdrawn to Emden, which was fairly neutral in religious matters, but he frequently visited Antwerp where his son still lived. At that time he was looking for someone who would run the risk of printing his monumental Den Spigel der gerechticheit tho ene anschouwinge des warachtigen levens [The mirror of justice for a contemplation of the true life]. Plantin managed to interest some of his business friends in Paris in the Family of Love and to convince them of the desirability of publishing Den Spigel der gerechticheit. They supplied him with the necessary money for a press, while Hendrik Niclaes met the cost of the cast type, illustrations, and paper.

This was Daniel's tersely summarized explanation. Can his statement be believed, and did Plantin in fact bring out clandestine publications for the leader of this sect? In his study De geschriften van Hendrik Niclaes [The writings of Hendrik Niclaes] H. de la Fontaine Verwey, the greatest modern expert on heretical trends in the Netherlands of the sixteenth century, lists a whole series of publications, the printing of which he ascribes to Plantin.^2.

1. Library of the Maatschappij der Nederlandsche Letterkunde at Leiden, manuscript no. 620. The fragments relating to Plantin were published by M. Rooses, Plantin, 1882, pp. 393-400, and H. Bouchery, Aanteekeningen, pp. 133-141 (republished in Suppl. Corr., no. 246), and summarized, in French, by Rooses in Musée, pp. 36-38.

2. Two editions of the ‘Mirror of Justice’: Den Spigel der gerechticheit tho ene anschouwinge des warachtigen levens (c. 1556); Den Spegel der gherechticheit dorch den geist der Lieffden unde den vorgodeden H.N. uth de hemmelsche warheit betüget (c. 1562). Also five smaller texts, dated by H. de la Fontaine Verwey to c. 1555-60, or 1555-c. 1562: (1) Evangelium offte eine frölicke bodeschop des rijcke Godes unde Christi: (2) De wett offte de vornömpste hövet-artyckelen des Christengheloves; (3) Prophetie des geistes der lieften; (4) Ein klachreden, die de geist der lieften unde H.N. mit sampt Abia, Joacim... over de blindtheit der volckeren klagende; and (5) Vorkündinghe van dem vrede up erden.

[p. 23]

The author is inclined to agree with this eminent Dutch scholar, although there is no irrefutable evidence to bring forward, only conjectures and probabilities. Rooses tries to prove on typological grounds that the Spigel der gerechticheit was printed by Plantin,^1. but his arguments leave room for doubt and his investigation only concerns the second edition of the book, dated by De la Fontaine Verwey at about 1562. On the other hand, Colin Clair hesitates to accept Plantin as the printer of these works.^2. His doubt has a subjective tinge: he cannot believe that the Frenchman Plantin would have produced a work that looks so Teutonic. The English scholar overlooks the fact that, according to Daniel, Hendrik Niclaes himself obtained the typographical material and imported at least some of it from Cologne.

There is a further piece of evidence that can be cited. In his letter of 20th October 1608, in which he analyses the religious beliefs of Plantin and Justus Lipsius at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury,^3. the Dutch preacher Saravia states explicitly that Plantin had printed what he refers to as the Speculum justitiae and other works by Hendrik Niclaes.^4.

From this it may safely be assumed that between 1555 and 1562 Plantin in fact printed a number of works in the greatest secrecy at Hendrik Niclaes's expense. Whether or not the ‘Bible’ of the Family of Love of about 1555 or 1556 was a product of Plantin's press, and whether the first edition of Niclaes's chief work caused him to go over to printing, remains an open question. Daniel's text seems to state that was so, but it is also rather confused. He makes it appear as if the Parisian merchants only advanced Plantin money to print propaganda material for the Family of Love. But it would be equally possible to conclude from Daniel's twisted and prejudiced account that Plantin received a loan from French business friends who shared his religious opinions, but simply for the purpose of setting up his own print-

1. Rooses, Musée, pp. 50-52.

2. Clair, Plantin, p. 246.

3. This letter was not published until 1950 and was therefore not available to Rooses, Sabbe, Bouchery, or De la Fontaine Verwey. H. van Crombruggen, ‘Een brief van Adriaan Saravia over Lipsius en “Het Huis der Liefde”’ in De Gulden Passer, 28, 1950, pp. 110-117.

4. ‘Quum in Belgio flagraret persecutio Ducis Albani, Speculum Iustitiae H.N. aliaque ipsius opuscula Plantinus excudebat.’ [While the Duke of Alva's persecution was raging in the Netherlands (this in fact is not quite true; Alva only came to the Netherlands in 1567), Plantin printed H.N.'s Mirror of Justice and other small works of this author.]

[p. 24]

ing-press, without there necessarily being any conditions involved apart from purely financial ones, and that he only made an agreement to publish Niclaes's works after he had established himself as a printer. In the absence of further particulars it cannot be decided which of these two possibilities is nearer to the truth. What can be established is that Plantin obtained his initial capital from businessmen who, like himself, were imbued with the spirit of the Family of Love - whether or not he printed the first edition of the Spigel der gerechticheit, and whether or not this caused him to forsake bookbinding for printing. Plantin's career as a printer undoubtedly has its origin in his religious convictions.

The writer of the Chronika, however, took the poorest possible view of these convictions. According to him Plantin was a calculating opportunist who wormed his way into Niclaes's favour simply for the sake of his own selfish ends, abandoning the leader the moment those ends had been achieved. He even alleges that Plantin and Porret abused the trust placed in them and stole from the sect. In 1562 or 1563 they are supposed to have kept for themselves a casket of gems that a Parisian jeweller had intended to bequeath to Hendrik Niclaes.^1.

These suggestions seem to be completely false and distorted, prompted by resentment at Plantin's later defection from the Family of Love and by envy of his success.^2. As far as can be made out from letters written by, to, and about Plantin, he remained true for the whole of his life to the principles preached by Niclaes (and later by Barrefelt, the ‘prophet’ who seceded from the Family of Love) which he had learnt to know and to value in his first years in Antwerp.

It is possible to regard the Family of Love as an Anabaptist sect and it is still classified as such in the history books, but the reality seems to have been less clear cut, however, and less susceptible of precise definition. Niclaes and Barrefelt were dreamers and visionaries and their doctrine and preaching are veiled in a confused mysticism that defies sober analysis.

H. de la Fontaine Verwey, the authority on the subject, ably characterizes the prophets, their preaching and their influence in his study, Trois hérésiar-

1. Concerning this event see also, p. 39.

2. The envy is quite obvious in Daniel's exposé. He even says explicitly that the ‘theft’ of the jewels and the beginning of Plantin's expansion were connected.

[p. *5]

(7) Opposite: Title-page of La magnifique et sumptueuse pompe funebre faite aus obseques et funerailles du tresgrand... empereur Charles Cinquiéme... This magnificent production was Plantin's first major work (1559), though in fact he only printed the very limited letterpress text, the actual publisher being Pierre Vernois.

[p. *6-*7]

(8) Plantin's first privilege, granted by the Privy Council of the Netherlands (Brussels, 5th April 1554 [Old Style]). It is written in French and allows Plantin to print three books and sell them in the Netherlands: Bruto's Institutione, Flores de Seneca, and Ariosto, Le premier volume de Roland furieux. They were all published in 1555.

[p. *8]

(9) Part of one of the thirty-three copper-engravings from La... pompe funebre de Charles Cinquiéme. The engravings are all of different length and together form a frieze about 12 yards long.

[p. 25]

ques dans les Pays-Bas du XVI^e siècle:^1. ‘In this study we wish to draw attention to three religious sects, founded in the Netherlands by the three heresiarchs David Joris, Hendrik Niclaes, and Hiël (i.e. Barrefelt), who obtained a following in Switzerland, France, England, and even in America. The three founders resemble one another, as do their doctrines and their movements. All three were of the type that von Dunun-Borkowski has called “prophetic egocentrics”. They looked on themselves as prophets, as messiahs, as sanctified men, and they judged everything - the Scriptures, Christianity, Christ Himself, according to their personal religious experiences. They divulged their mysteries only to a small number of initiates who, like their leaders, believed themselves to be perfect and above the law. The sectaries, although they had an internal organization, did not wish to set up a church in the ordinary sense. To avoid scandal, the members of these sects held strictly to the religious observances of the country where they lived, whether Catholic or Protestant, giving a symbolic interpretation to the Mass and the sacraments. This attitude caused their opponents to call them hypocrites and opportunists. Quite often they were also imputed with the worst forms of licentiousness, such as the communal sharing of wives, etc.

These people, whose extravagant claims appear ridiculous, have been deliberately left out of the history of the religious and philosophical ideas of the sixteenth century. It is assumed that rational men could never have been beguiled by such absurd and confused theories, and that these sects were comprised of no more than a handful of fanatics or the simple-minded and had only a very ephemeral life. To think this is to misunderstand the sixteenth century when, especially in matters of religion, anything was possible.

The purpose of this study is to show that, on the contrary: 1. the three heresiarchs found a fairly large public, not among “the dregs of the Anabaptists” as Fruin the great Dutch historian thought, but principally among intellectuals; 2. the sects lived on for a long time after their founders' deaths; 3. their ideas were not without influence on what Paul Hazard has called “the crisis of the European conscience”.’^2.

1. Op. cit., p. 314.

2. Original French text: ‘Dans cette étude, nous voudrions attirer l'attention sur trois sectes spiritualistes, fondées aux Pays-Bas par trois hérésiarques: David Joris, Hendrik Niclaes et Hiel [= Barrefelt] qui ont trouvé des adhérents en Suisse, en France, en Angleterre et même en Amérique. Les trois fondateurs se ressemblent comme leurs doctrines et leurs mouvements. Ils appartiennent tous trois au type que von Dunun-Borkowski a nommé: les prophétiques égocentriques. Ils se considèrent comme des prophètes, des messies, des hommes déifiés et ils jugent tout, l'Écriture, le Christianisme, le Christ, selon leurs expériences religieuses personnelles. Ils ne divulguent leurs secrets qu'à un petit nombre d'adeptes qui, comme eux, se croient parfaits et au-dessus de la loi. Les sectaires, bien qu'ayant une organisation interne, ne veulent pas organiser une église proprement dite et, afin d'éviter le scandale, ils observent rigoureusement les devoirs de la religion des pays où ils se trouvent, soit catholique, soit protestante, en donnant une interprétation symbolique à la messe et aux sacrements. Cette attitude les fait traiter d'hypocrites et d'opportunistes par leurs adversaires. Bien souvent, on leur impute aussi les pires désordres, comme la communauté de femmes, etc.
Dans l'histoire des idées religieuses et philosophiques du seizième siècle, on laisse délibérément de côté ces personnages qui paraissent ridicules avec leurs prétentions insensées; on suppose d'ailleurs que des théories aussi absurdes et confuses ne peuvent avoir séduit des personnes raisonnables, que ces sectes ne comprenaient qu'une poignée de fanatiques ou de simples d'esprit et n'ont eu qu'une vie très éphémère. C'est mal connaître le seizième siècle où, surtout en matière de religion, tout est possible.
Le but de cette étude est de montrer qu'au contraire: 1^o les trois hérésiarques ont trouvé un public assez large, non parmi “la lie des anabaptistes”, comme pensait le grand historien hollandais Fruin, mais surtout parmi les intellectuels; 2^o que les sectes ont longtemps survécu à leurs fondateurs; 3^o que leurs idées n'ont pas été sans influence sur ce que Paul Hazard a appelé: la crise de la conscience européenne.’

[p. 26]

To sum up the teaching of these religious leaders it could be said that all that mattered to them was their love of God - ‘the spirit of Jesus Christ’ as Plantin himself expressed it.^1. Dogma and ritual were of minor importance; tolerance and respect towards those who held different opinions was a duty and an obligation.

This was the essence of Plantin's religious faith. His views on the Catholic and Protestant churches are not expressed in his letters; the printer was careful not to commit his opinion on such burning problems to paper. However, Saravia gives in his letter the substance of a conversation that he had had with Plantin at Leiden, a conversation that illumines the latter's indifference towards the outward forms of religion. According to the Dutch preacher, Plantin only regarded the existing churches as necessary in so far as they provided people - particularly the imbeciliores of limited understanding and feeble spirit - with a firm anchorage. ‘Religions’, Plantin told, ‘are and always will be numerous and diverse and hostile to

1. In the letter to Ximenes, quoted on p. 29.

[p. 27]

one another. They all in fact have much hypocrisy and sham, but none the less they should not be condemned, as long as no wrongdoing can be imputed to them, because of the people of poorer intelligence. The common man needs something of this sort, otherwise he cannot grasp heavenly and divine matters.’^1.

What emerges much more plainly from Plantin's correspondence is ‘the spirit of Jesus Christ’. The sober and successful businessman was at the same time a pious mystic. When speaking of religious matters he became just as prolix and confused as his mentors Niclaes and Barrefelt. In an intolerant age he pursued the ideal of toleration - and lived up to it in his own life: he was a man of high moral principles, with a profoundly humane spirit.

Plantin remained a heterodox mystic for the whole of his life, but the moulds in which this mysticism was cast varied to the extent that he listened to two different spiritual teachers. This evolution, however, was more apparent than real. It is practically impossible even for the experts to distinguish between the teaching of H.N. (as Hendrik Niclaes is usually referred to in contemporary texts and in Plantin's letters) and that of Hiël (the ‘Life of God’ as Hendrik Janssen van Barrefelt generally called himself). The distinction lies only in nuances that are usually too subtle for the twentieth-century mind to be able to gauge or comprehend.

The generally held view is that Plantin was first a member of the Family of Love, and then followed Barrefelt when the latter broke away from the sect to establish himself as an independent ‘prophet’ in about 1573.^2. This

1. ‘Cum tempore quodam ruri spatiaremur Lypsius, Plantinus, et ego, nobis de religione multus variusque fuit sermo: tunc Plantinus, “religiones, inquit, sunt et semper fuerunt plurimae et variae, sibique invicem inimicae. Habent enim omnes simulationis et dissimulationis plurimum: contemnendae tamen non sunt, quamdiu nullum scelus habent admixtum, propter imbeciliores animos. Vulgus hominum rudimentis huiusmodi habet opus: celestia et divina aliter capere non potest. Una tantum pietas est, quae simplex est, nec habet quicquam simulati. Multos religiosos mundus semper habuit, pios vere perpaucos.”’ [At that time when Lipsius, Plantin and I were walking in the country, we often had conversations about religion: then Plantin said that religions are and always will be numerous and diverse and hostile to one another... cannot grasp heavenly and divine matters. There is only piety where there is simplicity, and does not conceal anything. The world has always had many religious men; very few of them were pious.]

2. It is Rekers who states this most baldly. He even bases on this his theory that Arias Montanus, through personal contact with Barrefelt via Plantin, deviated from the path of orthodoxy and became a member of Barrefelt's sect. Other scholars who have concerned themselves with the subject have dealt only superficially with the chronological aspect of the problem, especially the crucial questions of when Plantin broke with H.N. and when he came in contact with Barrefelt; questions on which they have certainly not committed themselves. Rooses, Musée, p. 44, however, also expresses the opinion that between 1567 and 1576 Plantin had no relations with heretical ‘prophets’.

[p. 28]

does not seem altogether correct to the present author; Plantin's correspondence suggests a rather different course of events. After settling in Antwerp, Plantin became a member of the Family of Love. His relations with Niclaes were at first very cordial and intimate: Plantin was undoubtedly an important propagandist for the sect, and possibly even one of its elders. There was some cooling off in the relationship in 1562 or 1563,^1. but the printer remained a follower of Niclaes until 1567.^2. Plantin's religious outlook in the years of his membership of the Family of Love are admirably revealed in the letters that he exchanged in May and June 1567 with that other visionary and scholar of genius, his fellow-countryman Guillaume Postel.^3.

In 1567, Plantin came into direct contact with the Spanish king and the Spanish authorities in Spain and the Netherlands; this was also the time that Alva's reign of terror began.^4. As far as can be made out, the printer then broke all contact with Hendrik Niclaes and the Family of Love as a safety precaution. At all events there is not a shred of evidence to connect Plantin with Niclaes's sect after that date.

When the Spanish Fury of November 1576 and the subsequent revolt of the Southern Netherlands against Spanish rule brought greater freedom of religion, Plantin did not re-establish contact with Niclaes. In any case the teacher was then leading a nomadic existence about which very little is known. Even the year and the place of his death is not certain: it is thought that Hendrik Niclaes died at Cologne in 1580 or 1581.

Earlier, in about 1573, Hendrik Janssen, called Van Barrefelt after his birthplace, Barneveld near Amersfoort, had seceded and formed his own sect. It was several years, however, before Plantin found his way to this dissident group. From 1579 to 1580, the printer undertook a number of

1. Because of the story of the ‘embezzled’ jewels.

2. And still called on him for financial help in the summer of that year: see p. 52.

3. Corr., I, nos. 30, 31, 33.

4. For Plantin's ‘year of the great fear’ and the subsequent expansion of his business through the contact with Philip II, see pp. 50 sqq.

[p. 29]

business journeys in Holland. He must have met Barrefelt there and fell under the spell of the man and his prophecies. He became equally ardent as a Barrefeltist as he had been as a member of the Family of Love.^1. For his new mentor he published a number of books and tracts^2. - again clandestinely - and became one of his foremost collaborators and propagandists.^3. Plantin's religious sentiments in this autumn of his life, under Barrefelt's influence, are well illustrated by his letter to Ferdinand Ximenes.^4. This time Plantin's friendship with his spiritual leader was ended only by death. Barrefelt survived his follower and friend by some years, but when and where he died remains a mystery.

Plantin was a mystic all his life, faithful to the ideas and ideals of toleration of the Family of Love and the Barrefeltists. He might well be accused of hypocrisy: to the world at large he presented himself as a pious Catholic. Plantin was in fact reproached with this,^5. but in this connection H. de la Fontaine Verwey must again be cited:^6. ‘It is not without reason that reference is made to the “unhappy people of the second half of the sixteenth century”. The two religions were locked in a struggle that seemed endless and threatened the world with total ruin. To those who in all conscience did not wish or were not able to choose between the two faiths, libertinisme offered a refuge and a solution. To repeat what has been said earlier: this “third force” of the sixteenth century should not be confused with the Libertines of the following century. Those we are discussing were neither atheists nor freethinkers; they were profoundly religious. If, having no belief in the

1. Concerning his relationship with Barrefelt, see p. 100.

2. Cf. pp. 100-101.

3. In the letter quoted above, Saravia says that Plantin was an elder of Barrefelt's sect: ‘Plantinum autem fuisse illius sectae presbyterum a pluribus accepi.’

4. Letter of 8th August 1587: Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1287.

5. The degree of acerbity has been determined by the personal outlook and religious convictions of the writers in question. On the whole, Catholic and liberal scholars have shown themselves more tolerant than their Protestant colleagues. Of the specialists who have concerned themselves with this question, only Sabbe has attempted to show that Plantin's membership of the Family of Love and of the Barrefeltist sect did not conflict with his Catholicism, and that his hero should be exonerated of the charge of hypocrisy. However, he makes a distinction - a little inconsistently - between the Family of Love and the Barrefeltists, counting membership of the latter more harmless.

6. ‘Trois hérésiarques’, pp. 329-330.

[p. 30]

divine reality of ritual, they felt it was a matter of indifference whether they kept the observances of the Catholic or the reformed religion, this was not from hypocrisy or religious half-heartedness. If they were tolerant, it was not a matter of political calculation. Their acceptance of two religions one beside the other, their symbolic conception of the sacraments, and their tolerance are based on the mystic idea that religious quarrels are totally futile because, when truth appears, all dissensions, all antitheses, all that divides will vanish before the great harmony. Obviously this celestial harmony is a beautiful dream, but such dreams are much needed in the nightmare of unhappy times!’^1.

It may even be wondered whether Plantin, in spite of his heretical opinions, did not continue to regard himself as a good Catholic at heart.^2. At all events it would appear that he rather disliked the reformed faith: militant and fanatical Calvinism was not to his taste. Placed between Catholicism and Protestantism, his personal preference was for the old religion.

1. Original French text: ‘Ce n'est pas sans raison qu'on parle des “tristes gens de la seconde moitié du seizième siècle”. Les deux religions se combattaient dans une lutte qui semblait sans issue et menaçait le monde d'une ruine complète. A ceux qui, en conscience, ne voulaient ni ne pouvaient choisir entre les deux religions, le libertinisme offrait un refuge et une solution. Répétons ce que nous avons dit plus haut: il ne faut pas confondre cette “troisième force” du seizième siècle avec les libertins du siècle suivant. Ceux dont nous parlons n'étaient ni des athées ni des libres-penseurs; ils étaient profondément religieux. S'ils observent indifféremment la pratique de la religion catholique ou réformée, tout en ne croyant pas en la réalité divine des cérémonies, ce n'est ni par hypocrisie ni par indifférence religieuse. S'ils sont tolérants, ce n'est pas par calcul politique. Leur acceptation de deux religions différentes l'une à côté de l'autre, leur conception symbolique des sacrements, leur tolérance sont fondées sur l'idée mystique que les différends religieux sont absolument inutiles parce que, quand la vérité apparaîtra, toutes les oppositions, toutes les antithèses, tout ce qui divise disparaîtra devant la grande harmonie. Évidemment, cette harmonie céleste est un beau rêve, mais ces rêves-là sont bien nécessaires dans le cauchemar des temps tristes!’

2. The point of view which Sabbe has defended. The sympathy of the Director of the Plantin-Moretus Museum with his hero undoubtedly led him to take an over-apologetic attitude, seeking to justify by documentary evidence matters that belong more properly to the realm of the subconscious and the secret stirrings of the soul. Nevertheless the author is of the opinion that Plantin's mysticism, even when expressed and experienced in the heterodoxical Family of Love and the Barrefeltist sect, is reconcilable with his belief that he was a good Catholic - if account is taken of the religious turmoil of the sixteenth century.

[p. 31]

The first years as a printer (1555-1562)^1.

In the first book that he printed, La Institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente, Plantin inserted a twelve-line poem of his own devising in honour of the author. He ended with the words ‘C(hristophe) P(lantin) Esperant mieus’ [C.P. Hoping for better things].

Plantin was right to put his trust in his stars, although it must be pointed out straight away that he did not merely wait passively for what fortune saw fit to drop in his lap. It was not without reason that in 1557 Plantin took as his motto Labore et Constantia, represented visually by a pair of compasses. The stationary point stood for constantia, the moving point for labor: this was how Plantin himself explained the symbolism of his printer's mark in the introductory pages of the first volume of his famed Biblia Polyglotta.^2. It was Plantin's third mark. The first showed a vine-dresser pruning vine tendrils festooned around an elm, with the motto Exerce imperia et ramos compesce fluentes, which he used in 1555. The second was a vine tendril with the motto Christus vera vitis, used in 1556 and 1557.^3. Plantin - and his descendants after him - continued to use this third printer's mark that so admirably reflects his outlook on life, and thus for three centuries the works that left the presses of the Officina Plantiniana bore the emblem of the compasses and the device Labore et Constantia.^4.

By labour and perseverance Plantin succeeded in working his way up in a few years to become the foremost printer in what was then one of the greatest printing centres in the western world. At the same time he bought and sold books and engravings,^5. maps and globes,^6. and paper and leather;

1. Plantin's early years are dealt with in most detail by Rooses in Musée, pp. 19-26. Concerning the works printed in this period see our Bibliography (in preparation).

2. Cf. A.M. Muntendam, ‘Critiek van Roemer Visscher op Plantin's drukkersmerk’, in De Gulden Passer, 14, 1936, pp. 77-79.

3. This second printer's mark shows a remarkable resemblance to a woodcut in Part 3 of H. Niclaes' Mirror of Justice (see plate 5). It was undoubtedly inspired by this and therefore has a mystical and heterodox significance.

4. For the various types of printer's marks used by Plantin and the Moretuses, see G. van Havre, Les marques typographiques de l'imprimerie plantinienne, 1911. Cf. also our Bibliography (in preparation).

5. A.J.J. Delen, ‘Christoffel Plantin als prentenhandelaar’ in De Gulden Passer, 10, 1932, pp. 1-24. (The whole period 1555-1589 is discussed, but the emphasis is placed on the years 1555-1562.)

6. Cf. J. Denucé, Oud-Nederlandsche kaartmakers in betrekking met Plantijn, 1912-1913, 2 vols. Concerning Plantin's sale of Mercator's maps and globes, see L. Voet, ‘Les relations commerciales entre Gérard Mercator et la maison plantinienne à Anvers’ in Duisburger Forschungen, 6, 1962, pp. 171-232.

[p. 32]

he conducted a fairly profitable trade in lace with Pierre Gassen;^1. for a few chosen customers he still made bookbindings, comb-cases, embroidered mirrors and boxes; and he arranged for large-scale bookbinding to order in Paris and possibly in Antwerp.^2.

There is not a great deal of information about Plantin's early years as a printer, but the number of works that left his presses in the years 1555 to 1562 speaks for itself: 10 in 1555, 12 in 1556, 21 in 1557, 23 in 1558, 13 in 1559, 13 in 1560, 28 in 1561, and 21 in 1562, giving a total of 141.^3. Compared with the firm's estimated total production of 1,500 to 2,000 works, these figures seem negligible. Their true significance emerges when they are compared with what other printers in Antwerp were producing at that time. Next to Plantin one of the most important figures among the Antwerp printers was Willem Silvius who, in a career that lasted from 1559 to 1580, brought out fewer books (about 120) than Plantin produced in his first seven years.

Plantin shot like a meteor into the Antwerp firmament, and from the start his sphere of activity was international. He used his contacts with Paris - and perhaps with his financial backers there - to gear much of his production to the French market and, from 1557 at least, he regularly visited the fairs at Frankfurt-on-Main, the great international mart for the European book-trade of that day.

In 1561 Plantin was already using four presses.^4. Again this figure taken by itself does not mean very much and has to be seen in its historical perspective. In the sixteenth century - and even as late as the seventeenth - officinae with four presses in operation ranked among the larger capitalist enterprises. The famous firm of Estienne at Geneva never had more than

1. Cf. p. 16.

2. The most important aspects of Plantin's activities in this period are recorded in Arch. 35, 36 and 38.

3. According to the dates given in the publications themselves. In fact many of these should be antedated. For example, most works showing the year 1562 on their title-pages were actually printed at the end of 1561.

4. And not eight as Rooses states in Musée, p. 29. (He gives the correct number - four - on p. 161.)

[p. *9]

(10) Everything the printer owned was publicly auctioned at the Antwerp Vrijdagmark on 28th April 1562: first page of the inventary of the printer's possessions, with the prices they fetched on this auction.

[p. *10]

(11) Title-page of Ravillian's Instruction chrestiene, a heretical book, allegedly printed by Plantin. The handwritten note at the foot of the page is by Plantin himself and states that he ‘did not make it nor had it made’. It is by no means impossible that this too was the work of three of Plantin's journeymen who had earlier printed the Calvanist Briefve instruction pour prier (1562) clandestinely and caused their master to go into temporary exile in Paris (cf. p. 40).

[p. 33]

four presses. In Paris in the seventeenth century, printers with more than this number could still be counted on one hand.

Right from the start Plantin appears as a typographical star of the first magnitude. Making a start was difficult, however, even for a man who had adopted Labore et Constantia as his motto. In those early years Plantin often undertook work put out by his fellow printers and publishers in Antwerp, Paris and Cologne, or he transferred considerable numbers of copies of his own editions to them en bloc, on occasion with altered title-pages bearing the address and printer's mark of the buyer. Thus La Institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente, Plantin's first book, has the address and mark of the publisher Jan Bellerus. Only the modest ‘De l'imprimerie de Chr. Plantain’ [From the press of C. Plantin] in the colophon commemorates Plantin's share in this edition.

The works that he printed in this period were carefully turned out and some were illustrated, but as regards their contents they were generally of the easy-to-sell type. Nor were these early products gems of typography: some none too brilliantly illustrated travel accounts and literary works, a number of small dictionaries, treaties on popular medicine, some volumes of Latin verse, and half a dozen classical authors. A large percentage of the works was in French, some in Spanish and Dutch; many of them were reprints of books that had been previously published in France.

Just one work from this period is far above the average: La magnifique et sumptueuse Pompe funebre faite aus obseques et funerailles du tresgrand et tresvictorieus empereur Charles cinquiéme, celebrées en la vile de Bruxelles le XXIX. iour du mois de décembre M.D.LVIII, par Philippes roy catholique d'Espaigne son fils [The splendid and costly ceremony held on the occasion of the funeral rites of the very great and victorious Emperor Charles V, performed in the city of Brussels the 29th day of December 1558 by his son Philip, Catholic King of Spain]. This appeared in 1559, and was as magnificent in its production as the funeral procession had been.^1. There were 33 copper engravings that placed end to end formed a frieze more than 30 feet long, and a short introductory text, editions of which appeared in Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and even ‘in all languages’;^2.

1. See plates 7 and 9.

2. Copies with French, Italian, Spanish, and German texts have been preserved.

[p. 34]

altogether the most splendid and lavish album of a topical event that the sixteenth century produced.^1.

Plantin's share in this work was limited, however. It was initiated and paid for by Philip's herald at arms, Pierre Vernois, who received a grant from the government for the purpose. The printing of the copper engravings, the most important part of the undertaking, was carried out in Hieronymus Cock's workshop that specialized in this. Plantin was only responsible for the printing of the fairly brief text. Nevertheless the fact that La magnifique et sumptueuse Pompe funebre bears the words ‘A Anvers, de l'Imprimerie de Christophle Plantin’ is in itself a significant indication of Plantin's importance in the printing world of this period. The herald at arms turned to the man who, because of his international commercial relations, could most swiftly and surely justify the money invested. He turned in fact to the foremost publisher and printer in the Netherlands.

The house in the Twaalfmaandenstraat, which Plantin had converted into a printing-office, must rapidly have become too small. As early as 1557 the printer moved to the Kammenstraat (which together with the Lombaardvest was the centre of the printing-trade in sixteenth-century Antwerp) to the Gulden Eenhoorn [Golden Unicorn], which he renamed De Gulden Passer [The Golden Compasses] in 1561.^2. It was there in 1562 that he encountered the blow which almost put an end to his career and in any case marked the conclusion of the first phase of his activities as printer.

1. Concerning this work see J.G. de Brouwere, ‘La magnifique et somptueuse Pompe funèbre de Charles Quint, 1558’ in Annuaire de la Société Héraldique de Luxembourg, 1950, pp. 47-62. Cf. also Anvers, ville de Plantin et de Rubens. Catalogue de l'exposition... Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, 1954, no. 275.

2. Concerning Plantin's successive homes, see pp. 260 sqq.

The flight to Paris (1562-1563)^3.

At the end of February 1562 Margaret of Parma, Philip's governor-general in the Netherlands, addressed a letter to her ‘dear and loyal’ Jan van Immerseel, Margrave of Antwerp, commanding him to initiate a serious inquiry

3. Margaret of Parma's correspondence with Jan van Immerseel, Margrave of Antwerp, on the subject of the Briefve instruction pour prier was published by C. Ruelens, ‘Christophe Plantin et le sectaire mystique Henrik Niclaes’ in Le Bibliophile belge, 3, 1868 (republished in Suppl. Corr., nos. 2-8). This episode in Plantin's life is dealt with at some length in Rooses, Musée, pp. 29-32. New details were brought to light by C. de Clercq, ‘Deux épisodes plantiniens’ in Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 1958, pp. 155-163, and ‘Jean et Jacques Taffin, Jean d'Arras et Christophe Plantin’ in De Gulden Passer, 36, 1958, pp. 125-136.

[p. 35]

into a heretical work, a copy of which had been delivered to her, apparently printed by Plantin. The conduct of Plantin, his family and his workpeople should be thoroughly investigated for, with the exception of a proof-reader and a servant-girl, they were strongly suspected of being ‘entachés des erreurs et sectes nouvelles’.

The authorities in Antwerp in this period do not appear as zealous heresy hunters - it is significant that in this instance, as in many others, the informer went straight to the central government at Brussels - but this formal command was difficult to evade. In his answer of 1st March, Jan van Immerseel declared that he had made his way forthwith to ‘le logist et imprimerie de Chr. Plantin, imprimeur à Anvers’. Plantin himself was absent. He had been in Paris for five or six weeks by this time. The margrave nevertheless succeeded, with the help of the proof-reader and ‘ung liseur estant espaignol’^1. in laying hands on a number of copies of the heretical Briefve instruction pour prier, of which Margaret had sent him her copy. He also found the culprits, three of Plantin's journeymen, namely Jean d'Arras, Jean Cabaros and Barthélemy Pointer, all of French nationality.

On being interrogated the accused stated that they had printed this Calvinistic Instruction without Plantin's knowledge while he was in Paris and that the text had been sent from Metz by an uncle of Jean d'Arras. They said that the entire impression - a thousand copies - had already been dispatched to Lorraine.

On 12th March 1562 Margaret of Parma thanked her ‘very dear and well-beloved’ Van Immerseel for the zeal he had shown in this matter and in the similar investigation into the Dutch translation of the Briefve instruction pour prier. (For a short time this too was thought to have originated from Plantin's press, but after a number of Antwerp printers had given their opinion it was presumed on typographical grounds to have been printed in Emden.) The guilty journeymen would have to be given an exemplary punishment. As for Plantin, Article 23 of the Plakkaten, the

1. On the meaning and the function of ‘liseur’ cf. the chapter on proof-reading in volume II of the present work.

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edicts against heresy, stated that the master-printer was answerable for his journeymen. In Brussels it was felt that there was good reason for suspecting that Plantin, his wife and other members of the family were not all that they appeared to be in matters of religion: ‘il sera requis de bien enfoncer la conduicte de son mesnaige.’ It would also be a good idea if the proofreader and the ‘liseur’ were interrogated. They had left Plantin's house but still resided in the town.

Brussels seems to have been very well informed. With the utmost dispatch the margrave set to work again. Before 17th March he was able to report that he had found a thousand of the fifteen hundred copies of the Briefve instruction pour prier. The rest had already been sent off, the greater part to Metz, a number to Paris. The guilty journeymen would pay dearly for their misdeeds: they had been sentenced to the galleys. As to the inquiries concerning Plantin, the proof-reader and the ‘liseur’ had unfortunately disappeared, leaving no address behind.

In a further letter dated 17th March, Van Immerseel filled in some more details. The copies of the heretical work found in Antwerp had been burnt.^1. He had not received any suspicious reports about the ‘maisnaige dudit Plantin’. As the printer himself was still in Paris ‘y sollicitant certain procès’, Van Immerseel felt that he could hardly invoke Article 23. ‘Si esse que à son retour l'apelleray vers moy, pour oyr ses excuses.’

Van Immerseel concludes by lamenting an unforeseen difficulty: to whom should he deliver the three guilty journeymen? It was the custom in Antwerp for criminals to be fed by the town almoners, but after the sentence to the galleys had been passed these officials refused to meet the cost of keeping the journeymen. While waiting for the departure of the convoy the expense would be transferred to His Majesty and his exchequer: ‘Ce que facillement viendroit à couster bien bonne somme tant pour garde que aultrement en attendant les commissaires...’

This was the end of the official correspondence, or at least of what has been preserved of it, concerning the incident of the Briefve instruction pour prier. The legal hair-splitting between the town almoners and the government officials over the maintenance of the galley slaves seems to have saved the

1. The search was so thorough that not a single copy seems to have escaped the fire. Investigations in Metz and Paris have not brought any to light there either.

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culprits from an unhappy fate. This was certainly the case with Jean d'Arras: as early as May 1563 he turned up in Metz, where he began a new typographical career, working his way up in a few years to become the foremost Protestant printer in the town.^1. His two workmates presumably slipped through the net at the same time.

Was Plantin as innocent in this affair as the margrave felt he could assume? There is no other evidence besides the margrave's statements, and Jan van Immerseel was hardly a fanatical heresy-hunter. If Plantin was a heretic, however, he had little liking for Calvin's doctrines and steadfastly refused to distribute Calvinistic writings. At the same time it appears that he did in fact leave early in January 1562 to travel to Paris^2. and that he was involved in a lawsuit there.^3.

The writer of the Chronika des Hüsgesinnes der Lieften supplies the information that Jeanne Rivière followed her husband to Paris with the children, and that all were affectionately received and given hospitality by Porret.^4. According to the same witness, Plantin shortly afterwards rode from Paris to Kampen to find Hendrik Niclaes and implore his help and support. He then returned to Paris - by way of Antwerp. This lightning visit can be dated to March 1562.^5. While Jan van Immerseel was absorbed in his

1. Cf. C. de Clercq, ‘Jean et Jacques Taffin, Jean d'Arras et Christophe Plantin’.

2. On the 27th June 1562 the two Antwerp printers Jan Verwithagen and Jan Ryckaerts testified on oath before the Antwerp aldermen (in connection with the sale of Plantin's property, of which more later) that their colleague had left the city shortly after Christmas 1561 (see De Clercq, ‘Deux épisodes plantiniens’, p. 156). Plantin's journal (Arch. 36) was kept continuously up to mid-January 1562 (folios 17 and 18: entries dated 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th and 12th January). There are further entries on 5th March 1562 (concerning the sale of two of Mercator's maps to H. Cock) and on 14th May (a note of sums totalling 332 fl. to be paid). The next entry is dated 10th September 1563.

3. However, the first documentary evidence for this dates from 1563. On 15th November 1563 half of two adjoining dwellings in the rue d'Ablon in the Saint-Marcel district of Paris, belonging to the bookseller Lucas Brayer, were seized. According to an adjudication order of 21st July 1563, Plantin was among the creditors and was able to lay claim to the considerable sum of 1,528 livres tournois (Clair, Plantin, p. 245). The Chronika suggests another, less honourable motive for Plantin's departure for Paris. See p. 39.

4. Suppl. Corr., no. 246, p. 285: see p. 38 n. 3.

5. At the request of one of Plantin's creditors (again in connection with the enforced sale of the printer's property; see below), four journeymen swore on 1st September 1562 that they had worked at the Plantin press up to and into Holy Week, which had begun that year on 22nd March, and that Plantin had not been in his house from Holy Week until after Whitsuntide (C. de Clercq, ‘Deux épisodes plantiniens’, pp. 156-157). The journeymen did not say explicitly that they had seen their master during the period 1st January to 22nd March, but the way in which their oath is formulated suggests that they could well have done so, most probably in the days before Palm Sunday. On the other hand Plantin's journal has an entry for 5th March 1562 (cf. p. 37 n. 2.), which suggests that the printer was at home on that day.

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investigation of the printer's affairs, the latter actually called in at Antwerp and then disappeared again in the direction of the French capital, this time for a longer period.^1.

In the opinion of the author it seems reasonable to assume that Plantin was in fact the dupe of his workpeople in this affair, that he did go to Paris on some business or other, and that the three journeymen made use of his absence to print the Briefve instruction pour prier.^2. When Plantin became aware that the machinery of the law had been set in motion, for safety's sake he remained in Paris longer than was strictly necessary for his lawsuit or other business. Not until well into 1563, after an absence of a year and a half, did he return to Antwerp - no doubt after he had made sure that the affair had either blown over, or at least contained no further danger for him personally.

How Plantin kept himself in that year and a half of involuntary exile remains a question. Porret gave the printer and his family shelter and generous hospitality.^3. The trade in lace with Gassen does not seem to have been completely stopped: through the agency of a certain Noël Moreau,

1. The entry in the journal dated 14th May 1562 in Plantin's own handwriting (cf. p. 37, n. 2) could be taken to show that the printer was then on a short visit to the city (perhaps on the way back from Kampen?). In this case the visit of March 1562 would have taken place on the journey to Kampen. Rooses, in Musée, p. 32, asserts that this entry was made in Paris, but neither text nor circumstances prove this.

2. Plantin himself stressed this in his letter of 22nd November 1575 to the Lyons printer A. Gryphius (Corr., V, no. 676, p. 74): ‘[concerning a consignment of books which Plantin could not remember] que s'il en avoit envoyé quelques ungs durant l'accident qui m'advint par la malice de mes gens tandis que j'estois à Paris et que j'y demouray ung an ascavoir tant que messieurs de la justice eussent congneu mon innocence au faict de mesdicts serviteurs en madicte absence.’ [... whether he had sent some of them at the time of the misfortune that befell me through the malice of my workpeople while I was staying in Paris and where I remained for one year till the judges had recognized that I was not guilty of what my men had done in my absence.] It is significant that the author of the Chronika, in spite of his dislike for Plantin, emphasized that the journeymen exploited their employer's absence and printed the ‘suspect boecksken’ without his knowledge. (Suppl. Corr., no. 246, p. 285.)

3. ‘To welckerem Hüse [i.e. Porret's], dat vor Plantyn noch vor syn Wyf unde Kinderen, gene kosten gespaert worden.’ [At which house no expense was spared, neither for Plantin, nor for his wife and children.] (Suppl. Corr., no. 246, p. 285.)

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who later appears in the immediate circle of Plantin's friends, quantities of lace were dispatched to Paris on the printer's account.^1. The author of the Chronika des Hüsgesinnes der Lieften hints at the less honourable activity mentioned earlier. It was in these months that Porret and Plantin are alleged to have stolen the box containing precious stones from the house of the Paris jeweller who had just died and who had intended to bequeath his possessions to the Family of Love.^2. Hendrik Niclaes raised this ticklish question during the conversation at Kampen. Plantin declared that he did not know who had removed this precious box. The merchant had earlier sent him, in payment of his arrears, ‘three costly stones’ that the printer now wanted to sell.^3. Considering Plantin's life and conduct it is most unlikely that he was guilty of the act with which the author of the Chronika imputes him.^4. Be that as it may this text and the facts concerning the lawsuit show that the printer was owed quite considerable amounts of money in Paris at this time which, with the help of Porret and possibly of a number of minor transactions, enabled him to keep his head above water. He was even able to spend a fairly large sum on punches and matrices.^5.

In Paris on 31st August 1563 Plantin drew up the balance-sheet of his

1. Risselin-Steenebrugen, ‘Christophe Plantin, facteur en lingeries fines et en dentelles’ in De Gulden Passer, 37, 1959, p. 84.

2. The account given in the Chronika is, as always, very confused and explicit accusations and insinuations and suspicions are almost inextricably interwined. However, the author is quite unambiguous when he states that Pierre Porret removed the casket by himself. Plantin was then in Antwerp, but travelled to Paris shortly afterwards and appears from then on in the role of accomplice. According to the Chronika it was during this stay in Paris that Plantin's journeymen slipped their leash and printed the Briefve instruction pour prier.

3. Plantin had other jewels at his disposal in these months. On 20th August 1562 Hendrik Winckelman stated that through the agency of Noël Moreau he had received ‘a gold ring embellished with four stones’ in payment of two debts totalling 29 pond 2 schellingen and 6 groten Flemish (about 180 fl.) which Plantin owed him (Arch. 98, folio 90). This is the only transaction of its kind that has been found in the Plantin archives.

4. Cf. also Rooses in Musée, pp. 38-39, who quotes a letter of 20th September 1591 from Pierre Porret to Jan Moretus in which Plantin's ‘brother’ states ‘Je luy avoys baillié troys pierres de quoy je pense qu'il retira quatre ou cinq cens escus’. [I gave him three stones from which I think he made a profit of four or five hundred écus.] (Arch. 91, pp. 163-164.)

5. M. Parker, K. Melis, H.D.L. Vervliet, ‘Early inventories of punches, matrices and moulds in the Plantin-Moretus archives’ in De Gulden Passer, 38, 1960, p. 15.

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financial transactions with the linen-draper Pierre Gassen, who advanced him quite a substantial sum of money ‘to send to Antwerp’.^1. On 10th September, Plantin's ‘journal’ at Antwerp was re-opened.^2. He had already been there to see how the land lay: in June, July and August 1563 he appears to have squared accounts with the Antwerp amman, the legal officer who acted for the central government^3. - and was immediately involved in settling another irksome matter with the authorities.

In a letter of 26th June 1563, Margaret of Parma invited ‘nostre chier et bien amé Christoffle Plantin’ to go to Brussels ‘pour quelques choses qu'avons à vous faire déclairer’.^4. The idea was presumably to question Plantin about another suspect work, the Instruction chrestiene by Pierre Ravillian, published in Antwerp in 1562 ‘de l'imprimerie de Christof. Plantin’. In the same bundle that contained Margaret's letter, Max Rooses found a copy of the Plantin edition of 1558 (it is completely different from the 1562 edition), together with the ‘privilege’ that was granted for this work, and the manuscript of the 1562 edition, with the autograph and fully signed approval of the canon responsible for the parish of the Church of Ste. Gudule (now St. Michel) in Brussels. In the library of the Plantin-Moretus Museum, however, there is a copy of the 1562 edition with a handwritten note by Plantin himself on the title-page ‘Ceste impression est faussement mise en mon nom car je ne l'ai faicte ne faict faire.’^5. The presence of this note, the type employed, the printer's mark (the original wood-block of which is preserved in the Museum) show clearly enough that this second revised and suspect edition of the Instruction chrestiene also originated in the Plantin printing-office. Yet Plantin categorically disowns this impression, even though he personally was completely covered by the canon's authorization. Probably it was once again a case of treacherous dealing on the part of Jean d'Arras and his companions, the more so as there are reasons for believing that Pierre Ravillian was in reality a pseudonym for Jean Taffin, Cardinal Granvelle's ex-librarian who had been converted to Calvinism. In 1558 -

1. Risselin-Steenebrugen, op. cit., pp. 84-85.

2. Arch. 36, folio 18vo.

3. Namely on 17th June, 4th July, 15th July, 19th July, 29th July and 19th August 1563 (with a final payment on 28th March 1564): Arch. 98, folio 102vo. Cf. Rooses, Musée, p. 30.

4. For the text and an illustration of this document see Rooses, Musée, p. 32.

5. See plate 11.

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the year in which the first edition was published - Taffin was staying in Antwerp with Plantin and in 1561 he turned up as a preacher in Metz, where Jean d'Arras was residing! It may even be possible that Plantin employed Jean d'Arras and Jean Cabaros on the recommendation of his old friend.^1.

Be that as it may, the matter of the Instruction chrestiene seems to have been satisfactorily shelved. Plantin already had troubles enough: on 28th April 1562 all his goods had been sold under process of law in the same Vrijdagmarkt where today the Plantin building extends along the whole of the western side.

The facts are easy to reconstruct. In the archives of the Museum there is an inventory headed by the words: ‘Dese navolgende goeden toebehoorende Cristoffel Plantin indecammerstrate sijn vercocht by exercitie den achtentwintichsten Aprilis tweentsestich, ten versuerke van Loijs de Somere ende Cornelis van Bomberge’ [The following goods belonging to Christophe Plantin (residing) in the Kammenstraat have been sold by order on the twenty-eighth (day) of April (fifteen hundred and) sixty-two, at the request of Lodewijk van Somere and Cornelis van Bomberghen].^2. The sale was carried out by order of the Antwerp amman.

The two merchants must have petitioned for this sale as creditors of Plantin. According to documents from the Municipal Archives a number of other creditors also put forward claims in this period, most of them after the sale, one before the sale but probably when it had already been arranged and announced.^3. At first sight the procedure appears quite normal. There is one circumstance, however, that invites further inquiry. Plantin formed a company with one of these ‘remorseless’ creditors of April 1562, Cornelis van Bomberghen, immediately after returning to Antwerp! On 16th June 1563, three months before Plantin's return, the same van Bomberghen had, in the presence of the amman, formally guaranteed any sums that might have been wrongly charged to Plantin for the sale.^4. All this suggests that the printer himself may have had some part in the official sale of his property.

In April 1562 it was still not certain what turn the matter of the Briefve

1. L. Voet, ‘Plantin en de kring van Granvelle’ in De Gulden Passer, 37, 1959, pp. 147-149.

2. Arch. 27.

3. Cf. De Clercq, ‘Deux épisodes plantiniens’, pp. 156-158.

4. Rooses, Musée, p. 30. See plate 10.

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instruction pour prier might take. Whether Plantin was personally guilty or innocent, there was always the possibility that the authorities might hold him responsible under the heresy edicts, sentence him, and confiscate his property for the benefit of the exchequer. It is even possible that Plantin's movables had already been seized under a provisional court order or at least placed under seal.^1. It is therefore conceivable that Plantin asked a few friends to forestall the authorities by staging this fictitious attachment for debt so that eventually, by this roundabout and embarrassing means, he could secure possession of his threatened property. But the printer had been able to secure his principal treasure in good time, namely his collection of punches and matrices for casting type.^2. Consequently not a single punch or matrix was auctioned. Late in 1563, after the storm had blown over, Plantin entered his Antwerp home again and was able with a contented mind to draw up an impressive inventory, augmented by the purchases he had made in Paris from 1562 to 1563. He did not go empty-handed to the financial backers who opened up new possibilities for him at the end of 1563.

The inventory drawn up at the time of the sale of Plantin's possessions gives an idea of the financial progress the former bookbinder had made by 1562, seven years after going over to printing, and thirteen or fourteen years after his arrival in Antwerp. Altogether the sale realized the substantial sum of 1,200 Flemish pounds (= 7,200 fl.) or, to be more exact, 1,199 pond, 5 schellingen, and 10 penningen. The stocks of books and cast type accounted for the greater part of this sum, bringing in roughly 406 and 457 pond respectively. The stock of paper (about 93 pond), the wood-blocks and copperplates for illustrations (about 63 pond), the presses, including four printing-presses and a number of smaller bookbinder's presses (about

1. The Chronika is the only source which states this explicitly: ‘... wahrdorch [because of an informer] dath de Merckgrave idtsulve angeheven Werck quam vorstoren, de Gesellen gefangen nam, uude alle de Güderen van Plantyn ansloege’. [... because of which the Margrave came and interrupted that same work which had been started, took the journeymen prisoner, and seized all Plantin's goods.] (Suppl. Corr., no. 246, p. 285.) There is a strong probability, however, that this is what actually happened: the seizure of a suspect's property was then a normal legal procedure.

2. He probably collected these when he stopped at Antwerp in March 1562. Plantin may even have returned into the lion's den simply in order to make sure of these valuable and easily transportable articles.

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52 pond),^1. brought the total of movable property connected with the business to about 1,075 pond.

This leaves only about 125 pond for Plantin's various household effects. This arid catalogue with the sale-prices noted after each item does not give the impression of excessive luxury: a few tables and chairs, kitchen utensils, an imposing quantity of beds and bed-linen, some of which should be included among the commercial effects, for like most sixteenth-century master craftsmen Plantin housed not only maids and servants, but also apprentices, and even journeymen and what would now be termed ‘administrative staff’. There was a still more impressive quantity of baskets, chests and trunks, filled with all kinds of junk, besides two halberds and three flutes. There was not a single painting or piece of ornamental furniture. It was still a far cry from the luxurious furnishings to be seen in the present Plantin-Moretus Museum that evoke the patrician standards of Plantin's successors.

From the total of 1,200 pond (7,200 fl.) realized by the compulsory sale a number of creditors' claims must be deducted, but if the surmise concerning the true significance of the sale is correct, then these should not be estimated at too high a figure. In fact after Plantin's creditors had been paid, the amman transferred to the printer a sum of just under 480 pond, the proceeds from the sale of his property.^2. This sum was paid in six instalments, five between 17th June and 19th August 1563, and the last on 28th March 1564.^3. This means that the debts, fictitious or otherwise, placed before the amman represented barely three-fifths of the amount raised by the sale. Plantin's other assets must also be taken into account: the money in his possession; his own apparently considerable claims as a creditor; a stock of books, possibly fairly large, in the warehouse at Frankfurt; and his collection of punches and matrices. At the moment of the disaster Plantin's assets, after deduction of his debts, can be estimated at a total of about 10,000 fl., which was a considerable sum for those days. In 1562 the Antwerp printer was already a man of means. Nevertheless as far as he and his family were concerned he

1. In Musée, p. 29, Rooses erroneously speaks of eight printing-presses and one bookbinder's press: the description in the inventory and the prices noted there (Arch. 27, folios 44-45) show clearly that only four printing-presses were sold.

2. Arch. 98, folio 102vo. Cf. Rooses, Musée, p. 30.

3. Cf. also p. 40 n. 3.

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contented himself with the essentials; practically everything was invested in the business.

The master of the Gulden Passer emerged unscathed from the perils of 1562 to 1563 and was able immediately to widen his scope, thanks to the support of one of his ‘creditors’.

The period of the ‘Compagnie’ (1563-1567)^1.

On 26th November 1563, in one of the rooms in the spacious Antwerp residence of Karel van Bomberghen, lord of Haren, five people put their signatures to five copies of a long text. They undertook to enter into partnership, forming a company that was to last for eight years, but was renewable after four. The company, for reasons which those concerned thought it unnecessary to specify, was considered to have come into being on 1st October of that year. The fifth and last to sign was Christophe Plantin who affirmed in his vigorous and typically French handwriting: ‘Je Christophle Plantin approuve tout ce qui est contenu cy dessus.’^2.

The printer, only just back from his enforced exile, with little more than the punches and matrices that he had managed to save,^3. and a small number of books and engravings that for some reason had not ended up in the Vrijdagmarkt,^4. had been able to insure that his business would continue on a wider basis than before; he had formed a printing company with four financial backers who could put at his disposal an amount of working capital that was remarkable for those days. The man who took pity on Plantin, or, to put it more accurately, who saw in the calm, reliable, hardworking printer an interesting investment for his money, was Cornelis van Bomberghen, who figured so largely in the affair of April 1562.

It was undoubtedly Cornelis van Bomberghen who persuaded some of his

1. Rooses, Musée, pp. 57-66; Clair, Plantin, pp. 37-56. Concerning the end of the company, see Bouchery, ‘Aanteekeningen’. For the Van Bomberghen family: H. van Bomberghen, Généalogie de la famille van Bomberghen, 1914; F. van Ortroy, ‘Les Van Bomberghen d'Anvers’ in De Gulden Passer, 2, 1924, pp. 131-144; J.H. Dumont, La vie aventureuse d'Antoine van Bomberghen, compagnon de lutte de Guillaume le Taciturne, 1952.

2. Text in Rooses, Musée, pp. 380-381. The reprint in Suppl. Corr., no. 229, is incomplete (the last part was left out - probably by mistake). See plate 12.

3. Listed in Arch. 36. pp. 34 sqq.

4. Listed in Arch. 36, p. 20.

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relations to enter the company and to open their purses. These were his cousin Karel van Bomberghen, lord of Haren, in whose house the company was officially established; Johannes Goropius Becanus, the physician who had attended Plantin in 1555, and who was married to Catherina de Cordes, grand-niece of the two Van Bomberghens and the sister of Karel's second wife; and lastly Jacob de Schotti, Cornelis's brother-in-law. In February 1566 a fourth member of the family became a partner. This was Fernando de Bernuy, a nephew of the Van Bomberghens on his mother's side and also the guardian of Becanus's stepson.

At all events it was Cornelis van Bomberghen who invested the largest amount of money in the company and assumed responsibility for supervising its finances and keeping the accounts. Plantin, as what would now be termed the technical manager, and Cornelis van Bomberghen directed the company: ‘et sera ladite imprimerie des livres latins, grecqs, hébrieux, francois, italiens, ou telz que seront trouvez propres et idoines par l'advis dudit Cornille de Bomberghe et Plantin, selon qu'ilz jugeront en conscience pouvoir estre au proufit de ladite compagnie.’ The rest of the partners contented themselves with the passive role of financial backers.

The assets of the company were divided into six parts, of which Cornelis van Bomberghen reserved three for Plantin and himself. The three other partners received one share each. In return Cornelis paid 600 pond (3,600 fl.) into the general fund as initial capital, while his three relatives (and later Fernando de Bernuy) each provided 300 pond (1,800 fl.). Plantin's contribution was made in kind. He supplied the typographical material and equipment, in particular his fine collection of matrices and punches, valued at an estimated 200 pond (1,200 fl.). These, however, were simply loaned to the company and remained the property of the printer. Similarly the matrices of Hebrew characters were placed at the disposal of the company by Cornelis van Bomberghen, but remained his personal property. They came originally from Karel's father, the famous Daniel van Bomberghen, who printed Hebrew works in Venice at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Apart from the profits distributed pro rata among the partners, the two ‘managers’ received a number of special payments. For taking care of the book-keeping Cornelis van Bomberghen received 80 écus a year, while Plantin was entitled to 400 fl. a year ‘as his salary’. The latter received a

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further 150 fl. a year to rent suitable premises, 60 fl. for the use of his matrices, and in addition to this a lump sum of 50 fl. for the small items that are necessary in the day-to-day running of a printing-press, but are difficult to keep account of: ‘de vieux linges, de feu, d'utensiles de ménage, des lessives et autres menutez.’ It was also laid down in the deed of foundation that works published by the company should bear only the name of Plantin, with the exception of those in Hebrew which, being produced with Cornelis van Bomberghen's type, had to mention his name.

With the working capital provided by the partners Plantin's company entered on a period of expansion. To the two presses in operation on 1st January 1564 a third was added in February of the same year, a fourth in April, and a fifth in October. A sixth press was put to work in 1565. At the beginning of January 1566 the number was increased to seven, a phenomenal figure for the time.^1. Plantin then had a total of 33 printers, compositors and proof-readers.^2. Measured by sixteenth-century standards, this was the equivalent of a large modern concern with some thousands of employees.

On New Year's Day 1564 the first edition, a Virgil in 16mo, left the new Plantin presses. By the time their last work, the A.B.C. et petit catechisme, had been registered on 28th August 1567, the company had put a total of 209 editions on the market.^3. Such figures are eloquent enough without further comment. Business was more strongly concentrated on the wholesale trade than in the previous period and based chiefly on the Antwerp booksellers, the Paris market, and the Frankfurt fairs. The fast-growing firm demanded the full attention of the master. The side-lines that had brought in welcome extra money for Plantin in the preceding years were either stopped or curtailed. The former bookbinder virtually ceased to practice this craft. He remained fairly active, however, as Pierre Gassen's agent in the trade with Paris in lace.

The works produced were still of the sort that was easy to sell. There was a preponderance of classical authors, followed by devotional books and the volumes of profusely illustrated parables that were termed ‘emblems’. But even at this date a number of scientific treatises draw the attention, among

1. R. de Roover, ‘The business organisation of the Plantin press in the setting of sixteenth century Antwerp’ in Gedenkboek der Plantin-dagen, 1956, p. 237.

2. Idem, pp. 237 and 239.

3. Listed in Arch. 4.

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them the medical textbook by Andreas Vesalius and Valverda, Vivae imagines partium corporis humani (1566), and botanical studies by Rembert Dodoens and Garcia ab Horto (1566). The Hebrew Bibles and Plantin's first Greek editions also deserve mention.

The Gulden Passer in the Kammenstraat soon became too cramped for the steadily growing concern. In 1564 Plantin moved for the fourth and penultimate time. He remained, however, in the Kammenstraat. From the 11th to the 15th July of that year his eighteen employees, aided by porters and waggoners, lugged the entire contents of the Gulden Passer to the house called the Grote Valk [Great Falcon] farther along the street. This house was in its turn re-christened the Gulden Passer: on 16th August Plantin paid Pieter Huys, the well-known painter, the sum of 5 fl. 5 st. for ‘l'enseigne du compas pour pendre à la maison nouvelle’.^1.

The partnership had been entered into for eight years, renewable after four. Plantin in fact kept the company accounts up to the end of the first term, to 5th October 1567.^2. Yet the last edition entered up for the company was completed on 28th August,^3. while the journal ended on 13th July of that year.^4. On 30th August 1567 Plantin wrote to Gabriel de Çayas, the secretary to Philip II mentioned earlier, explaining in a long letter how he had severed relations with his partners when he had realized that their religious convictions were hardly orthodox and had paid them off immediately, although this had had the effect of seriously curbing his activities.^5. The same theme is taken up in various other letters that he addressed to influential Catholic personages at this time.

What had happened? Goropius Becanus must have belonged to the same heterodox sect as Plantin. Jacob de Schotti's orthodoxy does not appear to have been doubtful, at least not sufficiently so to be disturbing. The two Van Bomberghens and Fernando de Bernuy, however, although they may have belonged to the Family of Love,^6. were fiery Calvinists. During and

1. Cf. p. 262.

2. Arch. 3, folio 75.

3. Arch. 4, folio 121.

4. Arch. 2, folio 43.

5. Corr., I, no. 83.

6. The Van Bomberghens are usually classified - explicitly or by implication - as adherents of Hendrik Niclaes's sect. The only argument that can be put forward in support of this view is that they were partners of Plantin, Niclaes's follower. Two facts argue against this: they were ardent propagandists for the Calvinist cause, and also - and in particular - the author of the Chronika des Hüsgesinnes der Lieften, a confidant of Niclaes, mentions the Van Bomberghens incidentally as Plantin's partners (Suppl. Corr., no. 246, p. 287), but seems hardly to have known them and in any case does not connect them with the sect.

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after the Iconoclasm at Antwerp (20th-23rd August 1566), they resolutely made themselves known as such and played an important part in the city's Calvinist consistory.

When the tide turned early in 1567 and Margaret of Parma's forces were pressing hard on the rebels, so that it began to look as if Antwerp too would be obliged to open its gates to the royal troops, the two Van Bomberghens decided it was high time to take precautions. In January Cornelis van Bomberghen sold his share in the company to his brother-in-law Jacob de Schotti and in February he disappeared from the Netherlands. He was probably accompanied on his flight by Karel van Bomberghen. How the latter realized his share in the undertaking is hard to say. It is even possible that the lord of Haren may have ceased to be part of the company as early as February 1566, and that Fernando de Bernuy did not actually buy a new share, but simply took over that of his kinsman. These and other small mysteries connected with the break-up of the partnership could only be cleared up by a systematic study of the accounts.

Fernando de Bernuy was just as ardent a Calvinist, and just as compromised as the two Van Bomberghens. He may have waited a little longer to see how the situation would develop, but the news of Alva's arrival must have encouraged him to make haste: on 13th July 1567 the company's journal closed with the payment of about 800 pond to this shareholder. That de Bernuy had already placed a safe distance between himself and the Netherlands by this time and received the money via intermediaries are possibilities that cannot be entirely ruled out.

Plantin must also have severed his financial ties with Goropius Becanus and Jacob de Schotti in the same period, thereby regaining his freedom of movement. He could therefore truthfully declare, in his letter of 30th August 1567 to de Çayas, that he had disassociated himself from his too Protestant partners, even though his explanation was not quite as full as it might have been. Plantin certainly made this move, but not the moment the Van Bom-

[p. *11]

(12) Opposite: Deed of partnership between Plantin and members of the Van Bomberghen family (26th November 1563). On the second and final page the signatures of the five partners may be read: Joannes Goropius Becanus, Karel van Bomberghen, Cornelis van Bomberghen, Jacob Schotti, Christophe Plantin.

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(13) Benedictus Arias Montanus. Oil painting on panel by Rubens. Montanus is portrayed wearing the mantle of a knight in the Spanish military order of St. James. The portrait was commissioned by Balthasar I Moretus between 1630 and 1636.

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berghens and de Bernuy had revealed their true sympathies. He only took the step when his Calvinist partners were likely to be crushed in the machinery of repression and he himself was in danger of being dragged after them to destruction. It is even conceivable that the initiative for liquidation came as much from the other partners as from Plantin. The Van Bomberghens and de Bernuy may have insisted on settling their affairs before their flight, so that they could take as much in the way of cash or liquid assets abroad with them as possible. The two remaining partners, Jacob de Schotti - who had become the principal shareholder after the transfer of Cornelis van Bomberghen's portion - and Goropius Becanus, were relatively neutral in their religious opinions and therefore less of a danger to Plantin. Because of the uncertainties of the times, however, and realizing that their family enjoyed little popularity in government circles, they may also have prepared for the possibility of a hasty departure and wanted liquidation.

The break with his Calvinist partners, moreover, was not as drastic as Plantin made it appear in his letters to pro-Spanish persons at this time. Even after August 1567 he was frequently in contact with the Van Bomberghens, borrowing money from them on some occasions; these contacts and transactions, however, were carefully camouflaged in his correspondence and in his accounts.^1.

In August 1567 Plantin was left on his own, but this time with a well-equipped printing-office and a still substantial working capital. Nevertheless payment of the amounts owed to his partners, and the troubled times that did anything but encourage the buying of such luxuries as books, must certainly have curbed his activities.

In these troubled months the printer was wrestling with serious financial problems. In January 1567 he complained that only three of his seven presses were working;^2. in August of the same year he affirmed there were

1. Bouchery, ‘Aanteekeningen’, pp. 106-107.

2. Letter to S. Winandus Pighius, 12th January 1567 (Corr., III, no. 338). Plantin apologized for the fact that he could not produce an edition sponsored by Cardinal Granvelle because of lack of funds and money. He stated in passing that he had had to stop four (out of seven) presses. In his accounts for January 1567, however, five presses were entered as operative (De Roover, op. cit., p. 239). In his letter to Pighius, Plantin probably painted too black a picture of certain aspects of his affairs, but the disorganization of trade, which he describes so vividly, and the difficulty of obtaining ready cash seem to correspond with the truth.

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still only four in operation.^1. On the other hand he was successful in finding a source from which he could obtain ready money, the commodity he most needed. Late in 1566, when Paris was momentarily peaceful and therefore relatively eager to buy, he had set up a well-appointed bookshop in Porret's house in the rue Saint-Jacques, where he might hope to place a considerable stock of his books.^2. At the same time he had found a number of powerful Spanish patrons through whom he had been able to win the support of Philip himself for certain of his plans. He could face the future with a calmer mind than in 1562 and 1563.

Nevertheless for Plantin 1567 was the ‘year of the great fear’, the only time in his long career when his head was seriously in danger. He became involved in the distasteful matter of a clandestine anti-Spanish press. When Alva rode into Brussels at the head of his tercios on 22nd August 1567 and the repression set in, the printer had reason to fear the worst.

This crisis was not only to pass: Plantin's attempts to break out of the net that enmeshed him led to a new period of expansion, greater even than the previous one. It led to the zenith of his career - and the beginning of his great financial difficulties.

1. Letter to de Çayas, 30th August 1567 (Corr., I, no. 83, p. 182).

2. Rooses, Musée, p. 171; H. Stein, ‘La succursale plantinienne de Paris’ in Bibliographe moderne, 1920-1921, p. 35.

The year of the great fear (1567)^3.

In the province of South Holland, a few miles south of Utrecht, lies the small town of Vianen, in the sixteenth century the most important possession of the proud family of the Brederodes. During and after the Iconoclasm the seigniory was the headquarters of the Protestant Hendrik van Brederode, the ‘Great Beggar’. There were already a few printers established at Vianen, but so far as can be discovered their equipment was rather rudimen-

3. This episode was dealt with in detail for the first time by Bouchery in ‘Aanteekeningen’. There are interesting particulars about printing and publishing at Vianen in this turbulent period in three essays by H. de la Fontaine Verwey: ‘De geschriften van Hendrik Niclaes’ in Het Boek, 26, 1940-42; ‘Over enige boeken te Vianen gedrukt tijdens het “voorspel”’in Opstellen... aangeboden aan Dr. F.K.H. Kossmann, 1958, pp. 20-34; and ‘Hendrik van Bredero en de drukkerijen van Vianen. Een episode uit het voorspel van de tachtigjarige oorlog’ in Het Boek, 30, 1949-1951, pp. 3-41.

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tary. At the end of 1566 a new printer arrived in this ‘midden of sectarians’, or ‘hydra of revolt’ as Viglius ab Aytta more elegantly put it.

He was probably much better equipped than his Dutch colleagues, but barely had time to install himself. At the beginning of 1567 the foot companies and cavalry of Margaret of Parma started swiftly to roll up the Protestant positions. At Oosterweel near Antwerp on 13th March the inexperienced recruits of the Calvinist leader de Toulouze were surprised and massacred. On 11th April the Prince of Orange left the city on the Scheldt to head for Germany by way of Breda. On 27th April it was the turn of Hendrik van Brederode to leave Amsterdam to seek safety over the eastern frontier. On 3rd May Margaret's troops marched into Vianen.

The new printer was swept along in the general flight and hurried over the German border to the safety of Wesel. He does not seem to have had the time or opportunity to print much: perhaps one or two religious tracts by Hendrik Niclaes, although these are more likely to have been printed in Wesel. There remains little doubt, however, as to what the printer would have produced in the midden of sectarians had Brederode and his Protestant ‘beggars’ been able to stand their ground. The man had more than likely come to Vianen to set up an anti-Spanish, and presumably pro-Calvinist, press. The printer was a certain Augustijn van Hasselt. The man behind the scenes who furnished Van Hasselt with materials and enabled him to establish his printing-press, was his former employer on whose pay-roll he was entered as a journeyman printer until 2nd November 1566 - Christophe Plantin.

Plantin cannot be called a commercial adventurer. He lacked the ruthless, self-assured effrontery of such types. But he did possess their reckless spirit. His dare-devil gambling with fate carried him to the highest point of fame and prestige that a printer has ever reached - and soured his old age with racking financial worries. There is a whole world of difference, however, between recklessness and the patronizing of such an enterprise as that at Vianen. The hope of financial gain can have been only slight; the likelihood of reaping the whirlwind so much the greater.^1. As a man of

1. In fact the enterprise ended with a large deficit. Cf. Plantin's letter to Niclaes, 2nd August 1567 (Corr., I, no. 74): ‘Mais depuis je n'en ay rien entendu [i.e. of Van Hasselt], non plus que de tout ce qui estoit entre les mains dudict Augustin, choses mesmes qui me mect aussi en peine, à cause que j'ay déboursé plus de cinq cens florins, tant pour papiers, cuirs, ancres, ports et advances, etc., dont je n'ay onques retiré qu'environ 40 fl. de quelque partie des Apoc. et Rec., etc.’ [But since I have heard nothing of him, nor of all that which was in the said Augustijn's possession, a matter that also troubles me because I have spent more than five hundred fl., for paper, leather, ink, transport, as well as for loans, etc., out of which I have made not more than about 40 fl. profit from some consignments of the Apoc. and Rec., etc.]

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peace, Plantin always kept as far as possible from the political arena. In religion his sympathies certainly did not extend towards fanatical and belligerent Calvinism.

Augustijn van Hasselt was also a member of the Family of Love and had actually been sent by Hendrik Niclaes to Plantin to learn the craft of printing. He later became printer to the sect in Cologne. It might at first be thought that the idea was to set up a propaganda centre of the Family of Love within Hendrik van Brederode's sphere of influence. The Calvinists, however, were just as implacable and violent in their dealings with zealots of anabaptist tendencies as were the Catholics. The leader of the Family of Love thoroughly disapproved of the venture and censured Plantin as well as Van Hasselt;^1. nevertheless he helped to cushion them to some extent from its unfavourable financial consequences.^2. The Vianen enterprise was certainly not begun on the initiative of Niclaes's sect.

Taking all these factors into account, it would appear that Plantin was forced into this adventure against his will by Calvinist elements. The real culprits are not far to seek. When these events took place the Officina Plantiniana was still a company. Three of Plantin's partners were ardent Calvinists - and Karel van Bomberghen was the brother of Antoon van Bomberghen, Hendrik van Brederode's fierce lieutenant who was killed by a shot from a Spanish harquebus in October 1568, when the army of William of Orange was crossing the Gete.

It may be assumed that it was Plantin's Calvinist partners who, influenced by their kinsman Antoon van Bomberghen, aimed at setting up the anti-

1. Chronika (Suppl. Corr., no. 246, pp. 288-289). In fact the author of the Chronika expressly says that Van Hasselt went to Vianen to print ‘partisan [i.e. anti-Catholic] books’. Cf. also Bouchery, ‘Aanteekeningen’, p. 109.

2. By buying up the materials Van Hasselt had retained and setting him up in Germany as printer to the sect: Chronika (Suppl. Corr., no. 246, p. 289).

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Spanish press at Vianen, and that Plantin followed them only reluctantly. Nevertheless the fact remains that he was a party to this enterprise and that he was disloyal of his own free will to the Spanish authorities. This time not even the most benevolently disposed official could interpret the edicts in his favour. Plantin's head was at stake.

Plantin could have secured his safety, like his partners, by going abroad - to Paris, where his recently fitted out Compas d'Or in Pierre Porret's house could have afforded him an excellent opportunity of starting again; to Frankfurt-am-Main, where the magistrates seemed disposed to show the great printer all kinds of favours, should he wish to settle in their town.^1. Plantin, however, was already too deeply rooted in Antwerp and he resolved to weather the storm there. In this risky game of chance he did not rely solely on his own boldness to carry the day.

Augustijn van Hasselt, the dangerous link between Antwerp and Vianen, sat safe and sound in Germany and therefore the Spanish authorities could not force confessions out of him by torture. The presses at Vianen had scarcely been installed and had been able to do little or no harm; consequently the authorities, who had more on their hands than they cared for in those troublous days, had no special reason to look into this particular matter.

For the rest, Plantin took a number of precautions. He had Van Hasselt write him a letter on 10th March 1567, shortly before his flight to Wesel, in which the journeyman apologized for having gone to Vianen against Plantin's orders.^2. In his letters to pro-government elements, the printer related how many of his journeymen had left his officina, lured ‘to Vianen and I know not where’ by the hope of higher wages.^3.

Plantin's gamble paid off. The secret was well guarded at the time. It was so well kept that it needed all the perspicuity of Dr. H. Bouchery to

1. At least this is what Plantin asserts in his letter to de Çayas, 19th December 1566 (Corr., I, no. 20, p. 51). In this letter he also mentions that the Elector of the Palatinate had made offers to entice him to Heidelberg and the Constable of France had tried to induce him to return to his homeland.

2. Corr., I, no. 26. For the interpretation of this letter, see Bouchery, ‘Aanteekeningen’, pp. 114 and 119-120.

3. In his letter to Pighius, for example, dated 16th January 1567 (Corr., III, no. 339).

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reconstruct this shadowy episode in Plantin's career from the few scattered shreds of material available. Yet Dr. Bouchery has shown that at least one highly-placed official had his suspicions, even if he did not actually see through what was going on.

Before the Iconoclasm, Plantin and Cornelis van Bomberghen had stood surety for a substantial amount on behalf of a ‘Monsigneur Claude de Withem, signeur de Risbourg’. Claude de Withem only partly met his obligations, so that Plantin had to make up the rest out of his own pocket. This involved the considerable sum of 2,630 fl. The printer repeatedly pressed for repayment, but did no more than try to move the recalcitrant debtor by lamenting his own pitiful financial condition. At no point did he adopt the peremptory tone he normally employed in such cases and which he even dared to use to Philip II.

The reason for this gentle manner was that in 1567 Claude de Withem was the ‘lieutenant de haut et puissant Signeur Monsigneur le conte de Meghen’, the same Count van Meghen who routed Brederode's army and took Vianen. As Van Meghen's lieutenant, De Withem could have heard of matters that Plantin little cared to have revealed. The printer must have received a warning letter, an ‘advertissement’ couched in unspecific terms, from De Withem as late as July 1568, to which he replied on the 1st August with a humble expression of thanks and a long explanation of how and when he had broken with Cornelis van Bomberghen.

Claude de Withem left it at the ‘advertissement’ and not paying his debts. Everybody else concerned in the clandestine press was similarly silent. The Vianen affair was shelved, though for many long months Plantin must have lived in fear and trembling. At least as early as December 1566 Plantin began literally to bombard his important Spanish and pro-Spanish connections with letters in which he emphasized his Catholic orthodoxy with great vehemence and even greater discursiveness. From December 1566 - that is to say when the Protestant cause appeared by no means lost, when Plantin had not yet separated from his Calvinist partners, and when he had just installed Augustijn van Hasselt at Vianen.

This might be regarded as a conscious and purposeful betting on two horses. The vehemence of Plantin's declarations of religious orthodoxy, however, makes it seem likely that, as has already been stressed, he did not

[p. 55]

much approve of the Vianen press. He was probably also trying to secure for himself a safe way back to the Spanish lines by strengthening the ties that bound him to certain faithful servants of the government.

Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, Archbishop of Malines, is generally represented as Plantin's great patron.^1. Granvelle certainly extended his protection to the printer for many years, but this patronage was of comparatively late date. Until 1564, when Granvelle, under pressure from the nobility, was ordered by Philip II to visit his sick mother in Franche Comté and left the Netherlands for good, the relationship was limited to the delivery of a few books and bookbindings and the printing of a polemical Catholic pamphlet - a commission for which the griffier (town recorder) of Antwerp, Joachim Polytes, was probably as much responsible as Granvelle.^2. Contacts only became more frequent from the beginning of 1567. Plantin sought and obtained closer contact with the prelate, who was in Rome at that time, through Stephanus Winandus Pighius, the famous humanist and archaeologist, then Granvelle's librarian in the Netherlands, and Maximilian Morillon, provost of Aire and vicar-general to Granvelle in the latter's capacity as Archbishop of Malines. Until the middle of 1567, however, the correspondence between Plantin and Granvelle dealt with little more than the publication of works by Pighius and friends of the cardinal in Rome.

It seems as if Plantin in these crucial months first sought to obtain the good offices of Pighius and Morillon who, although less powerful than the cardinal, were nearer home and could drop a discreet word in Plantin's favour in official ears at Brussels. As a result of this, and perhaps of promises and assurances given by Plantin, Pighius and Morillon also aroused Granvelle's interest in the printer.

It was not so much Granvelle as another influential person that Plantin canvassed in this period with all the energy of despair, holding out the bait that he had been keeping in reserve. This man did not appear in the limelight like Granvelle, but he was better able to exert his influence behind the scenes. He was Gabriel de Çayas, a man whose position was an exalted one:

1. M. van Durme, Antoon Perrenot van Granvelle, beschermheer van Plantin, 1948; and by the same author, ‘Granvelle et Plantin’ in Estudios dedicados a Menendez Pidal, Madrid, 7, 1957, pp. 225-272. Cf. also the studies mentioned on p. 377, n. 3.

2. L. Voet, ‘Plantin en de kring van Granvelle’ in De Gulden Passer, 37, 1959, pp. 149-151.

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he stood next to Philip himself. The secretary to the Spanish monarch had appeared before in Plantin's life-story, at the beginning of his printing career. It was the jewel-box he had ordered that got Plantin a stab in the shoulder in 1554 or 1555. Plantin remained in quite close contact with de Çayas until 1559, when the secretary left the Netherlands for good with his master. He supplied him with many more books and bindings than he delivered to Granvelle and did him many small services. It was to this man that the printer turned in 1566 when he felt his life to be in danger. It was above all de Çayas who received monotonously regular letters containing Plantin's affirmations of his Catholic faith, and it was de Çayas to whom the bait was proffered: a scientific edition of the texts of the Bible.

In Catholic circles too people were beginning to realize the importance of a scientifically based edition of the Bible. Plantin could hope that his proposition would be favourably received by Philip, thus indirectly securing him the mightiest patron he could wish for in the Spanish Netherlands. It should be pointed out that Plantin's original plan was fairly modest. His intention was only to publish a slightly revised edition of the famous Polyglot Bible in six volumes, printed at Alcala in Spain by Arnao Guillen de Brocar in 1514-17 and sponsored by Cardinal Ximenes.^1. Plantin had been thinking about some such plan for a considerable time. He had expressed his views on the subject as early as 26th February 1565 in a letter to his friend, the learned Orientalist Andreas Masius,^2. and he had already displayed a specimen page of his planned edition of the Polyglot Bible at the Frankfurt Fair in Lent, 1566.^3.

By interesting the Spanish king in the matter he could hope to achieve two of his aims at one stroke: on the one hand he would gain a certificate of orthodoxy; on the other he would obtain the financial means he needed to realize his grandiose scheme. It speaks volumes for Plantin's practical spirit that, in his effort to save himself, he did not plunge head first into financial adventure, but in a cool and calculated manner specified the financial aid he expected from His Catholic Majesty.

Plantin's extant correspondence with de Çayas on the Polyglot Bible

1. See p. 60 for a bibliography on the Polyglot Bible.

2. Corr., III, no. 333.

3. Plantin's letter of 19th December 1566 to de Çayas (Corr., I, no. 20, p. 51).

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starts on 19th December 1566,^1. but this letter is itself an answer to one from de Çayas. Thus the printer's attempts to win the support of the Spanish monarch for his enterprise date at least from November of that year, that is to say exactly at the time he was launching the anti-Spanish press at Vianen. Philip II, however, was wont to weigh his plans up carefully. Months went by and Plantin was left on tenterhooks. Every few weeks he sent de Çayas letters in which details of the Polyglotta were interwoven with ardent protestations of Catholic orthodoxy and loyalty to the Spanish crown. Sometimes Plantin himself felt that he had rather overstated matters and in making a fair copy would resolutely strike out the too prolix declarations of devotion in in his first draft.^2.

De Çayas had other things to do besides answering Plantin's letters. He stopped corresponding in the summer of 1567, at about the same time that Alva marched into Brussels with his Spanish tercios. Plantin's letters became even more frequent and truly pathetic in tone. He seems to have been on the verge of a nervous breakdown. But at last, at the end of September 1567, he obtained a reply. De Çayas was able to inform him that Philip was not unfavourably disposed to the project.

A great weight fell from Plantin's shoulders. His ambitious design was going to be realized, and the protecting hand of none less than His Catholic Majesty would be held above him. The reply of 1st October 1567 was written by an already much calmer Plantin. He had regained his equilibrium and the affirmations of orthodoxy and loyalty to Spain were henceforth omitted or much toned down and reduced.

In March 1568 his calm was momentarily disturbed once more, and his letters to de Çayas were again filled with lengthy affirmations of faith.^3. Plantin's head was again in danger, as Stephanus Pighius bluntly informed their mutual friend, Andreas Masius, in a letter of 15th March 1568.^4. It was

1. Corr., I, no. 20.

2. For a discussion of Plantin's correspondence in these months, see especially Bouchery, ‘Aanteekeningen’, pp. 118-125.

3. Bouchery notes this fact in ‘Aanteekeningen’, pp. 125-128, but is unable to give a satisfactory explanation for it. Pighius's letter to Masius was not known to him.

4. M. Lossen, Briefe von Andreas Masius und seinen Freunden, 1538 bis 1573, 1886, no. 290. Cf. L. Voet, ‘Plantin en de kring van Granvelle’, p. 152.

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not ghosts out of the past that came to disturb Plantin's peace of mind, however, but simply the embarrassing after-effects of a rather hasty commercial transaction.

At the end of 1566 René Benoist, a priest in Paris, brought out a French translation of the Vulgate. It was in fact the Calvinist Geneva translation, in which only the more suspect verses had been changed, and notes of a Catholic tinge provided.^1. Plantin saw this French translation as a commercial windfall and hastened to secure for himself the right to print it. His text was examined by the theologian Jan Henten, while a number of Louvain professors also endorsed it. In order not to lose any time, Plantin published the first part of the work to be completed, Le nouveau Testament de Nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ, as soon as it was ready. This must have been in July 1567, the same month in which the Sorbonne solemnly condemned the priest's brain-child.

In his foreword Benoist had, very genially and not without irony, explained his dangerous method: ‘Quant est de ceux qui pourront trouver mauvais, qu'en cest ouvrage se trouvent plusieurs choses, soit en la version, ou es annotations, lesquelles sont pareillement leües es Bibles des heretiques... Si ie trouve le larron en ma possession, pourquoy ne le despouilleray-ie? Puisque la guerre spirituelle est ouverte entre nous et les heretiques, ne m'estil pas permis de les piller?’ The Sorbonne, however, was not convinced. It was this Novum Testamentum Gallicum corruptissimum, that endangered Plantin's head, albeit indirectly.

Benoist did not acquiesce immediately in the decision of the University of Paris. Not at all disheartened, he had several further editions of his translation published in 1568. Plantin himself brought out a new edition in 1573, but without Benoist's annotations and without mention of his name. The work itself was therefore not sufficiently suspect and corrupt to warrant Pighius's writing of acute peril in his letter of March 1568.

It cannot be said with complete certainty what exactly happened. Granvelle's librarian, the only important relevant source, deals only briefly with

1. Concerning R. Benoist, his translation into French of the New Testament, and Plantin's publication thereof, see C. de Clercq, ‘Les éditions bibliques, liturgiques et canoniques de Plantin’ in Gedenkboek der Plantin-dagen, 1956, pp. 287-288; and by the same author, ‘La Bible française de René Benoist’ in Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 1957, pp. 168-174.

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the matter in a text that does not excel in clarity.^1. From the context it would seem that at the end of 1567 or the beginning of 1568 a Novum Testamentum Gallicum had appeared that was considerably more ‘corrupt’ than Benoist's, and did not carry the name of a publisher or printer. The first person to come under suspicion was Plantin, because of his earlier publication of Benoist's translation. Possibly the anonymous edition and that of Plantin were momentarily confused. Maximilian Morillon, vicar-general of the archbishopric of Malines, and Pighius came to the aid of their friend. They were able to show that Plantin's edition was covered by privilege and ecclesiastical approval. The storm subsided - at least for Plantin - as quickly as it had arisen when the actual printer of the Novum Testamentum Gallicum corruptissimum was discovered. Willem Silvius, the royal printer, was the culprit. On Shrove Tuesday (2nd March) 1568, he was taken from his bed and imprisoned.^2. Plantin could breathe freely once more and permit himself to drop his ardent religious affirmations in letters to his various patrons.

1. ‘Plantinum non puto tibi offensum, sed propter occupationes rarius scribere. Moneo indies hominem ne nihil neglecte sed provide atque anxie sua producat his maxime difficillimis temporibus cogitetque quadruplatorum nunc omnia esse plena, atque imprimis ne ejus generis lucro inhiet unquam, unde periculum sibi creari posset; quod haud contemnendum ejus capiti his diebus imminebat ob Novum Testamentum Gallicum corruptissimum, quod ex ejus officina prodiisse credebatur. Istud cum forte fortuna mihi ultro detexisset Morillonus noster, sua auctoritate me instante apud theologos hoc discussit, cum exemplar suum Plantinus, quod nuper cum privilegio et bene visitatum ediderat, confestim, me scribente, ad nos misisset. Itaque re melius detecta non diu postea, ipso quippe bacchanalium, extrema nocte Silvius ejus aemulus e lecto cum aliis multis in carcerem est raptus.’ In a letter of 20th February 1568 (Corr., III, n^o 353) Pighius had already warned Plantin: ‘Sed nescio, quidnam sinistri hic animo conceperint nonnulli de Nov. Testam. vel Bibliis tuis Gallicis novissime editis, et nunc aiunt a te suppressis. De ea re mihi locutus est hodie Dn. Praepositus Morillonus petiitque a me, ut ad te scriberem, se quia has meras esse calumnias putat, cupere ut mittas exemplar unum videndi causa, quo docere tuam innocentiam, atque apud quosdam tibi praestare officium amici possit, nam tuis rebus admodum favet. Quidquid igitur est, ad illum scribe, et expone illi causam tuam atque mitte exemplar, ut videat, qua ratione mature provideri rebus tuis possit: Nobis profecto molestissimum esset, si quod tibi periculum crearetur difficilimis hisce temporibus.’

2. Cf. H. de la Fontaine Verwey on the same subject: ‘Silvius en Plantijn’ in Het Boek, 26, 1940-42, p. 118. A French New Testament printed by Silvius is recorded in the appendix of the Index librorum prohibitorum of 1569. There are, however, no known copies of this work in existence (De la Fontaine Verwey, op. et loc. cit.). Silvius's imprisonment did not last long. He was released on bail at the end of May 1568 and pardoned a month later.

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The beginning of the expansion (1568-1572)

It would probably be an exaggeration to claim that Plantin owed the retention of his officina and his head to the Polyglot Bible, but conversely it could be said that Plantin's tribulations with the anti-Spanish press at Vianen led directly to this monumental creation. Without this crisis the printer, notwithstanding all his boldness, would probably never have dared to approach the Spanish king directly and with such insistence. Circumstances drove him to this game of chance - and he won.

With the financial support of the monarch, and urged on both by Arias Montanus, the representative sent by Philip II to the Netherlands, and by his own ambition, Plantin developed his initially modest concept of a slightly revised edition of the Alcala Polyglot Bible into a work that was as original as it was monumental.^1. The original idea suggested to de Çayas of an edition of the Bible texts in four languages (Hebrew, Chaldaic [=Aramaic], Greek, and Latin) and in six volumes became an opus magnum in five languages (Syriac texts were added) and arranged in eight bulky folio volumes. Five of these contained the actual texts, and the last three formed the so-called apparatus: it included a series of detailed and valuable treatises on the manners and customs, weights and measures of the ancient Hebrews; grammars and dictionaries for Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac and Greek; and revised versions of particular texts with emendations or interlinear glosses. The whole work, particularly the last three volumes, was lavishly illustrated.

Although this Biblia Polyglotta (or Biblia Regia as Arias Montanus and Plantin liked to call it, in honour of its royal patron Philip II) offered comparatively little that was new as regards the Hebrew text and the Latin

1. Books and articles on Plantin's Polyglot Bible include: M. Rooses, ‘Plantijns Koninklijke Bijbel. Geschiedenis van een boek in de xvi^e eeuw’ in De Gids, 3, 1880, pp. 238-273; T. Lamy, ‘La Bible royale en cinq langues imprimée par Plantin’ in Bulletin de l'Académie royale de Belgique, 1892, pp. 628-668; Rooses, Musée, pp. 71-93; De Clercq, ‘Les éditions bibliques, liturgiques et canoniques de Plantin’ in Gedenkboek der Plantin-dagen, 1956, pp. 288-294; Clair, Plantin pp. 57-86; and B. Rekers, Benito Arias Montano, 1961, pp. 97 sqq. The controversy arising out of the Polyglot Bible is discussed by F. Asencio in his ‘Juan de Mariana y la Poliglota de Amberes: censura oficial y sugerencias de M. Bataillon’ in Gregorianum, 36, 1955, pp. 50-80. F. Secret's ‘Documents pour servir à l'histoire de la publication de la Bible d'Anvers’ in Sefarad, 18, 1958, pp. 121-128, gives some useful information (more particularly about Guillaume Postel's conduct).

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Vulgate, it was important for its Greek texts and was an invaluable source of new data concerning the ‘Chaldaic’ and Syriac.

It has always been customary, both in the sixteenth century and subsequently, to refer to the Polyglot Bible when drawing attention to Plantin's importance in the history of the art of printing and of western culture. This work has remained through the centuries the symbol of his creative spirit. Yet it is equally symbolic that this masterpiece, the largest work ever undertaken by a single printer in the Netherlands, stands at the beginning of Plantin's great period of typographical development and expansion - and of his besetting financial troubles.

In March 1568, while Plantin was still struggling with the aftermath of Benoist's Novum Testamentum Gallicum corruptissimum, Philip II was at last able to make a decision. On the 25th of that month he put his signature to the series of letters and orders that would set the Polyglot Bible project in motion. One of the letters was intended for Plantin: the printer was given permission to begin work on the Polyglotta and payment of the promised royal grant (12,000 fl.) was guaranteed. He was also informed that Benedictus Arias Montanus, chaplain to the Spanish monarch, would travel to Antwerp to assume the task of directing the gigantic enterprise.

The joy of the printer on receiving the good news was by no means as great as might have been expected. On 3rd May 1568 a diffident Plantin wrote a carefully worded letter to de Çayas telling him that he had already made inroads into the stock of paper bought for the Polyglotta and did not have the money to replenish it: he would therefore have to wait for the royal subsidy before he could start work.^1.

Arias Montanus was bringing the subsidy with him, or rather the necessary instructions to the Spanish royal agents, but his arrival in Antwerp was delayed. He had left Madrid on 31st March 1568 and sailed from a port in northern Spain. The ship ran aground on the west coast of Ireland in a gale, and the chaplain had to travel right across that country and England before being able to embark for the Continent. At last, on 17th May, he reached Antwerp - so unexpectedly that Plantin, who had grown tired of waiting and set off for Paris on business,^2. had to be hurriedly recalled.

1. Corr., I, no. 124.

2. And in fact to buy paper for his new undertaking. See M. Morillon's letter to Granvelle, 16th May 1568 (Suppl. Corr., no. 65).

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Benedictus (Benito) Arias, who called himself by the Latin name Montanus, i.e. ‘from the mountains’, after his birthplace Fregenal de la Sierra, was 41 years old when he started on the colossal Biblia Polyglotta enterprise which, with his remarkable erudition and capacity for work, he brought to a successful conclusion.^1. In 1560 he had become a member of the military order of St. James, and in 1566 chaplain to Philip II.^2. He had already gained a great reputation as a Bible scholar, notably at the Council of Trent.

Plantin had been in correspondence with the scholar, through de Çayas, from the end of 1567. The printer's letters contained no more than the purely formal expressions of reverence and respect due to so eminent a person as Philip II's chaplain. Plantin in fact seems to have awaited the coming of this potential Spanish ‘spy’ with some mistrust, if not with fear. Acquaintance, however, more than dispelled all his misgivings. Plantin was always dutifully polite in his correspondence when referring to the friends of his friends, but in his letter of 11th June 1568 to de Çayas it is not a question of empty phrases of formal courtesy. The whole letter glows with lyrical enthusiasm for the man His Catholic Majesty had been pleased to send to Antwerp: ‘car je me sens attiré, contrainct et volontairement ravi et transporté à aimer et révérer ledict signeur Arias Montanus, et ce comme personnage que, sans envie ni affection, j'aperçoy à la verité estre autant bien doué et rempli de toutes grâces divines que j'en congnoisse.’^3.

This enthusiasm is encountered in other letters which he wrote at the time, one example being that to the abbot Jan Mofflin on 13th June 1568:^4. ‘I resolved to show proper deference to the said doctor Arias Montano, and straight away carried this out with all my power, not as I should, but in my simple manner. But since he has permitted me the liberty of conversing familiarly with him, I found myself so captivated and enraptured with love and reverence for his rare virtues, that having forgotten all your instructions, those of my lord and as a father de Çayas, of my lord Strella, and even of the

1. On the subject of this great Spanish theologian, see B. Rekers, Benito Arias Montano, which has an extensive bibliography. The author's objections to this particular work have been set out on p. 21, n. 1. Cf. also the studies listed on p. 368, n. 1.

2. A purely honorary title, implying no particular function at Philip's court - certainly not that of confessor to the king, an interpretation which has sometimes been put on it.

3. Corr., I, no. 127.

4. Corr., I, no. 131.

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position that he holds under His Majesty, I admire him and, as one completely bewildered, I often do not know if I should be silent or answer him, even when he speaks to me.’^1. The great scholar and man, Arias Montanus, and the great printer had met. Out of, and beyond their professional relationship grew a close and deep friendship, broken only by death.

Immediately after his arrival the Spanish theologian set to work and did not falter until the task was completed four years later. Admiration and respect for his new friend, however, could not prevent Plantin from grumbling when he saw how Arias Montanus in his enthusiasm at once enlarged the scheme and chose bigger type and pages, wrecking the budget that Plantin had so laboriously haggled over with Philip. Only the hope of new subsidies caused Plantin to give way.^2.

Arias Montanus had the general supervision of the project and took upon himself the lion's share of the work. For four years he spent eleven hours a day - including Sundays and holy days - writing, studying and proof-reading. He decided which spellings should be retained; he personally translated a series of Aramaic texts into Latin and wrote most of the treatises that made the apparatus so valuable. The Spanish scholar was ably assisted by a number of Plantin's own proof-readers. Three acted as his lieutenants since they, like Arias himself, understood all the languages of the Biblia Polyglotta: Frans Raphelengius, Plantin's learned son-in-law, who had married his eldest daughter Margareta in 1565,^3. and the brothers Guido and Nicolas Fabricius, or Le Fèvre.^4. The three others, Cornelis Kiliaan, Bernard Zelius van

1. Original French text: ‘... je me délibéray de tenir ledict Signeur docteur Arias Montano en telle réputation que je devois, et m'y employay de tout mon pouvoir, incontinent, non comme je le devois, mais comme, selon ma mode rustique, il m'estoit possible. Mais depuis que ledict Signeur Arias Montano m'a donné la hardiesse de converser familièrement avec luy, je me suis trouvé tellement esprins et comme transporté d'amour et révérence envers ses tant rares vertus, qu'ayant oublié toutes vos recommandations, celles de mon bon Signeur et comme père Çayas, de Monsigneur Strella, et mesmes le lieu qu'il tient envers Sa Majesté, je l'admire et, comme tout esperdu, ne sçay bien souvent si je doibs me taire ou luy respondre, quant mesmes il parle à moy.’

2. These were actually granted. After various bureaucratic complications, the royal assistance was raised from 12,000 to 21,000 fl.

3. Concerning Frans Raphelengius, see pp. 147 sqq.

4. Cf. M. Sabbe, ‘Guy Le Fèvre de la Boderie et la Polyglotte anversoise’ in De Gulden Passer, 6, 1928, pp. 250-253; F. Secret, ‘Guy Le Fèvre de la Boderie, représentant de G. Postel à la Polyglotte d'Anvers’ in De Gulden Passer, 44, 1966, pp. 245-257.

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Nijmegen and Antoon Spitaels, who only read Greek and Latin, played a more modest, though nevertheless important role. This team was helped by all kinds of occasional workers who correlated texts and saw to the minor treatises, dictionaries and grammars for the apparatus.

By 14th August 1568, scarcely three months after the arrival of Arias Montanus, the pressman Klaas van Linschoten was able to print the first two quires of the first volume. The printing of this volume was completed on 12th March 1569. The other parts followed in quick succession: the second volume on 8th October 1569, the third on 8th July 1570, fourteen days after the fourth volume had come off the press. That completed the Old Testament. The fifth volume, containing the New Testament, was ready on 9th February 1571.

Other compositors and journeyman printers had meanwhile started work on the apparatus. Early in 1572 the end was in sight. It was time to start thinking about obtaining papal approval for the edition. To be exact, this matter had been pondered for a considerable time, but Pius V had shown himself rather reluctant. For this reason Arias Montanus decided to go to Rome to argue the case for the Biblia Polyglotta in person. He set off on 26th April 1572. On 9th June Plantin was able to dispatch after him the triumphant message: ‘Nos, laus Deo, ea omnia absolvimus quae ad Biblia Regia pertinent.’^1. In reality everything was not as complete as Plantin let it appear, but this point must be discussed later.

The tribulations of the Polyglot Bible were not over, although these - with the exception of the matter alluded above, and leaving aside the question of selling the work - were more the concern of Arias Montanus than of Plantin. It was the learned Spaniard who managed to overcome the Vatican's resistance to the Polyglotta and succeeded in obtaining the approval of the new Pope, Gregory XIII, on 23rd August 1572. It was Arias Montanus who afterwards had to face the venomous attacks made on the Polyglot Bible by Willem Lindanus, Bishop of Roermond, and especially by Leon de Castro, a professor of the university at Salamanca. He also had many difficulties on this account with the Spanish Inquisition.

After the completion of the Polyglot Bible, Arias Montanus no longer played such a directly important role in Plantin's life. He maintained the

1. Corr., III, no. 189, p. 116.

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(14) Opposite: Earliest known portrait of Christophe Plantin. Engraving by Filips Galle in his album of famous people Virorum doctorum de disciplinis effigies XLIII (1572).

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[p. *15]

(15) Overleaf: Double-page spread from Volume V (New Testament) of Plantin's Polyglot Bible. On the left-hand page is the Syriac with Latin translation; on the right-hand page the Greek text with the Latin translation by St. Hieronymus. At the foot of both pages is the Aramaic paraphrase in Hebrew type. Proof sheet with the corrections of Arias Montanus.

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(16) Poem dedicated to the Magistrate and People of Antwerp, written by Plantin and printed in the introduction to the French editions of Ortelius's Théâtre de l'Univers (1581, 1587, 1598).

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most cordial relations with the printer, however, in letters to which frequent reference is made in this biography. Some indication of the scholar's subsequent movements is therefore in order. On 26th April 1572 he had left Antwerp for Rome, as mentioned above, and arrived back in the city on the Scheldt on 18th December. He stayed another two years in the Netherlands, leaving the country for good in May 1575. He made his way to Rome once more to defend himself against Leon de Castro's allegations. From there he returned to his homeland in May 1576. In the palace of the Escorial near Madrid he set in order the treasures that he had collected for the royal library in the Netherlands with Plantin. His stay at the court was by no means to his liking but - with the exception of a few interruptions, including some confidential missions for Philip II - he was not able to leave his Escorial ‘prison’ for his beloved estate at Pena de Aracena until 1590. The last years of his life were divided between Pena and the monastery of his order at Seville. It was at Seville that he died on 6th July 1598.

Before the Polyglot Bible was finished, even before the great project was under way, Plantin had plunged into another typographical venture. The Council of Trent had recommended the revision of various liturgical books.^1. On 9th July 1568 Pope Pius V published a brief reforming the breviary. The monopoly of printing the new breviaries was entrusted to the celebrated Roman printer Paulus Manutius. On 14th July 1570 the missal was reformed by a second papal brief, this time with another Roman printer, Bartholomeus Faletti, as the monopolist.

All previous liturgical editions were immediately rendered obsolete. This meant that the presses would have to work at a furious pace in the following years to keep up with the demand for new breviaries and missals. Plantin, who already had various editions of this type to his credit, realized at once the opportunities that this offered. Before the question of the new breviaries and missals had been settled by the papal brief, and even before

1. On the subject of Plantin's publication of breviaries, missals and books of hours in this period, see Rooses, Musée, pp. 97-114; Clair, Plantin, pp. 87-104; De Clercq, ‘Les éditions bibliques, liturgiques et canoniques de Plantin’ in Gedenkboek der Plantin-dagen, 1956, pp. 296 sqq.; R.M. Kingdon, ‘The Plantin breviaries: a case study in the sixteenth-century business operations of a publishing house’ in Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 22, 1960, pp. 133-150. Concerning the relationship with P. Manutius see F. Barberi, ‘Paolo Manuzzio e Cristoforo Plantin’ in Accademie e Biblioteche d'Italia, 16, 1941-1942, pp. 83-94.

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Philip had given permission for the Polyglotta to be printed, Plantin had already been seeking contact with the Vatican chancellery and the privileged printers. His chief support in this matter was Cardinal Granvelle, the Archbishop of Malines, who was still in Italy at this time.

By 19th November 1567^1. agreement in principle had been reached with Paulus Manutius concerning the breviaries. Plantin obtained sole rights for the Netherlands, but subject to the payment of a substantial sum of money.^2. On 11th August 1568 - only some weeks after the papal brief had been published - the deed was drawn up by notaries at Rome. At the end of October of that year Plantin was able to put his compositors to work. It was a false start: they had scarcely begun when Granvelle reported that the text Plantin had received was faulty and had to be revised. The work was stopped and the printer made use of the respite to have the official papal patent that he had received in the meantime (it was dated 22nd November 1568) endorsed by the Council of Brabant. He was greatly disconcerted to find that he had a competitor. A few hours before he had submitted his petition to the president of the Council, the latter had received an identical request, based on an almost identical papal privilege, from Plantin's Antwerp colleague Emmanuel Filips (or Emmanuel Filibert) Trognesius. The latter enjoyed the patronage of Jean-Roger de Tassis, Dean of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp.^3. A legal battle resulted, but it ended in a speedy victory for the master of the Gulden Passer. With his rival cleared from the field, Plantin could start again on 24th January 1569 with a new, and final text. On 21st April the first impression came off his presses; four other editions in different formats followed in the course of that year.

Things went more smoothly with the missal. On 28th July 1570 the papal privilege was conferred giving Plantin sole rights for the Netherlands, Hungary, and parts of the German Empire that were not specified in the brief. On 21st October 1570 Plantin was able to examine the first proofsheet and on 24th July 1571 he dispatched the first copies to his clients.

1. Nine months before the Papal brief of 9th July 1568 gave Manutius the sole rights.

2. Namely one tenth of the breviaries printed; i.e. for every hundred breviaries, Manutius received ten copies or their value in cash.

3. E.F. Trognesius was to abandon his career as a printer in 1569 or 1570 in order to become a priest. His father took over the business.

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The Books of Hours of Our Lady, however, caused some more trouble. These Horae also had to be revised, and again Plantin tried to obtain a monopoly, enlisting Granvelle's aid once more. In a letter of 7th July 1571, the cardinal was requested to urge the Pope to grant Plantin his patent, subject if necessary to the payment of a consideration to the Roman printer who was going to acquire the sole rights. In spite of papal prohibition, a colleague and fellow-citizen of Plantin called Steelsius had already obtained a patent for the Netherlands from the central government at Brussels. In addition, other publishers were having Horae of this type printed in the autonomous prince-bishopric of Liège.

Once more Granvelle did what was asked of him and was successful. On 23rd March 1572 he was able to send his protégé a brief granting him permission to print Horae for all countries. Nevertheless, when the great printer placed this document before the authorities in Brussels, he met fierce opposition from the heirs of Steelsius. Pieter Bellerus, who acted as their spokesman, had a writ served on Plantin preventing him from printing the contested liturgical works. Plantin, however, did not concede the fight. On about 20th June 1572 he received formal confirmation from Rome of the papal favour. This made his opponent more accommodating. A compromise was reached whereby the two parties agreed to publish their Horae simultaneously. Plantin had not waited for this matter to be settled before putting his people to work. On 22nd August he had one edition in 12mo and one in 24mo ready (the latter had been printed for him by Hendrik Alsens). In addition to these, Plantin had published a monumental psalter in 1571, followed in 1572 by an antiphonary on a similar scale. Liturgical works were literally pouring from his presses.

Plantin, however, was not wholly satisfied with the way that business was going. In autonomous Liège and in Cologne printers were turning out breviaries and missals in similarly large quantities, without bothering about the revelant papal patents and without paying a penny to the Roman monopolists. These breviaries and missals were also finding their way to the Netherlands, to the detriment of the scrupulous Plantin.

At that moment Philip II was negotiating with the Pope about special liturgical books for his Spanish dominions. Plantin immediately saw the importance of these transactions and the repercussions they could have on

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his business. If he succeeded in securing for himself the monopoly of the Spanish breviaries and missals, he could relinquish production for the Low Countries (and the payments made to the Roman printers) and concentrate on the infinitely more promising Spanish market. This time Arias Montanus championed his cause. Not a single printer in Spain at that time was able to provide the Spanish territories with the quantities of breviaries and missals that Plantin could promise, quite apart from the poor quality of the Spanish products.

Philip did not need to deliberate for long on this occasion: on 1st February 1571 he granted Plantin a virtual monopoly of the sale of breviaries and missals in Spain and in the territories she had conquered overseas. The king reserved for himself the role of agent, with its attendant profits. On 17th April 1571 the Pope ratified the contract between monarch and printer.

Plantin set to work at once: on 19th October 1571 he was able to send the first consignment to Spain; a very small one, consisting only of a single box with 25 missals. The number of boxes and the amount of books they contained, however, increased by leaps and bounds with every new consignment.^1. In the course of 1571 and 1572 Plantin supplied Philip with liturgical works to a total value of 9,389 fl., which was no inconsiderable sum. At the beginning of 1572 practically all his presses, except those used for the Polyglot Bible, had been freed for the production of breviaries and missals for the Spanish king.

Although these and other liturgical books for Spain were carefully turned out, and were soon being profusely illustrated with woodcuts and copper-engravings from the foremost graphic artists of Antwerp, they are not among the most remarkable or striking of Plantin's products. Nevertheless they played a part in the history of his firm that is far more important than their intrinsic interest: that the Moretus family could continue as printers when economic and cultural conditions in Antwerp became unfavourable is due to the fact that Plantin obtained the Spanish monopoly for the printing of

1. According to Rooses, in Musée, pp. 107-108, there were two boxes with 50 missals on 10th November 1571; 14 boxes with 1,036 breviaries in 8vo, 1,036 Offices of St. James and 1,036 Offices of St. Jerome on 6th December 1571; 16 boxes with 1,028 breviaries in 8vo, 935 Offices of St. Jerome, 450 diurnals, 450 Offices of St. James and 450 Festa of St. Jerome on 7th February 1572; and on 6th November 1572, 46 boxes with 900 missals in folio, 2,000 breviaries in 8vo, and 1,200 breviaries in 16mo.

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breviaries and missals in 1571, a monopoly which, after all kinds of vicissitudes which will be discussed in a later chapter, his descendants were able to take over. To these liturgical books the cultural gem that is the Plantin-Moretus Museum, owes - indirectly - its existence.

While busy with the Polyglot Bible and the many liturgical editions, Plantin still found the time, the opportunity and the capital to bring out numerous other books: Greek and Roman classical authors; theological and legal treatises; school books; volumes of illustrated parables and allegories; botanical works; Justus Lipsius's first study, Variarum lectionum libri III (1569); the famed Origines Antwerpianae (1569) by Plantin's former partner, Goropius Becanus; various lavishly illustrated editions of Arias Montanus's Humanae salutis monumenta (1571-1572), and so on. As the work for Philip II intensified so these other editions diminished. Plantin specialized more and more in printing liturgical editions intended for the Spanish market and distributed by the Spanish crown.

The craftsmen who cut and cast his letters had difficulty in keeping up with the pace set by the printer. Suppliers of paper and parchment did a roaring trade with the Gulden Passer; dozens of bookbinders depended almost entirely on Plantin; practically all the wood-cutters and copperplate-engravers in Antwerp and Malines were engaged in work for him. More new presses were set up in the Kammenstraat. The 5 presses in operation in January 1567 rose in the following years to 6 in 1568, 10 in 1569, (9 in 1570), 11 in 1571, and 13 in 1572. New journeymen, compositors, and proof-readers were continually being taken into service.^1. The officina of Plantin experienced an unprecedented, rocketing expansion. No other printer in the western world at the time could come anywhere near him.

Plantin's hegemony was, as it were, given official blessing when Philip II appointed him chief printer (prototypographus) to the Netherlands.^2. In their struggle against heresy Charles V and his son Philip had singled out the printers for special attention, and not without reason, but the edicts (the

1. Cf. De Roover, ‘The business organisation, etc.’, pp. 239-240.

2. The relevant documents were published by P. Rombouts as Certificats délivrés aux imprimeurs des Pays-Bas par Christophe Plantin et autres documents se rapportant à la charge de prototypographe, 1881. Rooses published a number of supplementary documents under the title ‘Plantin prototypographe’ in Bulletin van de Maatschappij der Antwerpsche Bibliophilen, 2, 1882, pp. 101-110.

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notorious plakkaten) and ordinances were not enough to bring the printers to heel, mainly through lack of thorough supervision. Philip II saw this quite clearly. On 19th May 1570 there was issued an ‘Ordonnance, statut et edict provisionnal du Roy nostre Sire, sur le faict et conduyte des imprimeurs, libraires et maistres d'escolle’. This instituted for the ‘lands from this side onwards’ a kind of preventive supervision, designed to canalize entrance to the printing trade and ruthlessly exclude the black sheep, both those who did not know the craft and those who were suspect on religious or moral grounds.

The cornerstone of the new system of control worked out by Philip II and his advisers was the prototypographus: ‘We have decreed and do hereby decree... that there shall be created and instituted a prototypographus or first printer who shall have oversight of the trade of printing; who shall have authority to examine and approve the masters and workmen of this craft in our lands from this side onwards and to grant to each and every one of them letters of competence according to their ability; for which letters further letters of confirmation and approval shall thereafter be requested from us or from our aforesaid Lieutenant and Governor-General in our dominions from this side onwards.’^1.

Thus it was intended that the chief printer should not only examine the professional competence of those seeking to become master-printers, and similarly test the other craftsmen engaged in printing, but that he should also watch over their conduct and the works they produced. Philip II had already appointed a typographus regius or royal printer for the Netherlands in 1560. This was Plantin's Antwerp colleague Willem Silvius.^2. On

1. Original French text: ‘Avons ordonné et ordonnons... sera créé et institué ung prototypographe, ou premier typographe, pour avoir superintendence sur le fait d'icelle imprimerye. Qui aura auctorité dexaminer et approuver les maistres et ouvriers de l'Imprimerye de nosdictz pays de pardeça. Et leur donnera, et a chascun d'iceulx, lettres de leur ydoneite, suyvant leurs facultez, sur lesquelles lettres se debvront parapres requerir lettres de confirmation et approbation, de nous ou nostredict lieutenant et gouverneur general de pardeça.’

2. The appointment happened in rather odd circumstances. Silvius was said to have submitted a work (the publication of the statutes of the Order of the Golden Fleece, which had actually been printed on Plantin's presses) to the Privy Council at the end of 1559 or the beginning of 1560 in order to obtain the appointment. According to Plantin's account in a letter of [March] 1568, Silvius had had this work printed in his colleague's officina during one of Plantin's fairly lengthy absences in Paris. See H. de la Fontaine Verwey, ‘Hoe werd Silvius koninklijk drukker?’ in Het Boek, 26, 1940-1942, p. 222. Cf. by the same author ‘Silvius en Plantijn’ in Het Boek, 26, 1940-42, pp. 111-125. Concerning Silvius and his relations with Plantin, see also Colin Clair, ‘Willem Silvius’ in The Library, 1959, pp. 192-205.

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10th June 1570, however, over the head of his appointed printer, the king entrusted the new post of honour to ‘nostre bien amé Christoffle Plantin, imprimeur juré, résident en nostre ville d'Anvers.’ Willem Silvius could continue to call himself royal printer, but now there was another royal printer who was as it were hierarchical head of the printers of the Netherlands.

Plantin probably smiled at the irony of fate that made the heretic and former sponsor of an anti-Spanish press the executor of His Majesty's decrees. In his heart he may have felt honoured by the royal confidence, but the new dignity promised to bring the office-bearer much administrative work and little popularity with his fellow-printers. On the other hand the Spanish authorities would not hesitate to administer the prototypographus a sharp rap over the knuckles if he fell short in any way. Without hope of compensation or salve to soothe the wounds, the holder of this office could expect to be caught between the hammer and the anvil.

It is true that in Plantin's letters of appointment Philip had spoken of ‘telz gaiges et traittement que pour ce luy seront tauxéz et ordonnéz et au surplus, aux honneurs, droits, prééminences, franchises et libertéz y apartenans’, but forgot to specify these reimbursements further. He continued to be forgetful.^1.

Plantin struggled against the appointment as hard as he dared in the circumstances. He pleaded that he was not proficient enough in Dutch to

1. There was talk of setting up a ‘royal printing press’ at Antwerp under Plantin's management. Plantin submitted this idea, through the good offices of Arias Montanus, to Philip II in the first half of 1571. The plan was approved by the king and by the Duke of Alva, who revised it so as to provide for the establishment of a royal library as well. Alva even signed an order on 21st November 1573 which provided, among other things, for the royal library to be built together with a residence for the printer ‘près de la Meere, au meisme lieu où, durant les troubles passez, les Walons avoyent érigé leur temple et tenu leurs prèsches resprouvées’ [near to the Meir, at the place where, during the past troubles, the Walloons built their temple and held their damned conventicles]. The site was to become Plantin's property ‘pour à ses propres frais et despens, y faire édiffier une chambre propice pour la garde desdits livres, et maison commode pour exercer la typographie’ [to have built there at his own cost and expense a suitable room in which to keep the said books, and a house appropriate to practise printing]. The publication of this order was as far as the matter went, however, and the work was not even begun. Cf. Corr. Suppl., nos. 282-287.

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be able to conduct examinations. But there was no getting round the royal command. On 28th June 1570 Plantin took the prescribed oath before Charles de Tisnacq, President of the Privy Council at Brussels. By no means aglow with enthusiasm, the new chief printer drew up a scheme for the examination, set the questions and provided himself with a register in which to enter the results.

Plantin would have not been Plantin if he had not tried to make the best of things. He was not able to evade the honour conferred on him and the ‘gaiges et traittement’ would probably never materialize, but a king had other ways of rewarding those who faithfully rendered him service. Very politely he asked Philip if, as ‘chef-imprimeur’, he could be exempted from paying the taxes on wine and beer in Antwerp and the other towns under His Majesty's sway. He also asked to be freed from the obligation of billeting soldiers.^1. Plantin probably had to continue paying the ‘axises et impositions’ on beer and wine: it has not been possible to discover any evidence of a royal concession of this sort. He was, however, excused the soldiers, although this was not by any reason of his position as chief printer, but because of Arias Montanus's intercession.^2. The relief was only temporary, for during the turbulent years of the revolt, Plantin was obliged on a number of occasions to take in military men of both parties.

The office of chief printer brought Plantin not a single concrete advantage. Government orders for the printing of Indices of prohibited books (1569-70) and, from 1570, of royal ordinances (the monopoly of which he shared with the Brussels printer Michel van Hamont) must be regarded as not so much the result of his new status, as of his good relations with the Spanish authorities.

It should, however, be pointed out that the office of chief printer very soon became a sinecure. During 1570, in addition to a number of certificates for printers' journeymen, Plantin issued forty-four testimonials for master-printers, but this number diminished rapidly in the following years.^3. On several occasions Plantin, at the request of fellow-printers, pressed the

1. Petition to Philip II (c. 19th July 1570): Corr., II, no. 238.

2. But not until 1572: cf. Corr., III, no. 386 (May-June 1572, letter to Albernoz, Alva's secretary) and no. 389 (9th June 1572, letter to Arias Montanus).

3. Three in 1571, 2 in 1572, none in 1573, 2 in 1574, 4 in 1575 and 7 in 1576.

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appropriate authorities for clarification of obscure points in the decree of 1570 - and with this moderate amount of activity the prototypographus was very wisely content.

The general revolt of the Netherlands in 1576 left Plantin with the title and no authority. After the restoration of Spanish rule, Philip II neglected to make his decree effective again and so Plantin could continue to grace himself with the titles of prototypographus, architypographus and ‘king's printer’, without being called upon to make any great efforts on this account.^1.

1. Jan I Moretus did not inherit the title. However, in about 1639 his son Balthasar was granted the title of ‘architypographus regius’ ('s konings drukker; imprimeur du roy). See p. 220.

The year of crisis: 1572^2.

In this year the Officina Plantiniana was flourishing. A steady flow of books was issuing from an ever-increasing number of presses. Then on 1st April 1572 a Protestant naval force, the so-called watergeuzen or ‘sea beggars’, took the small Dutch port of The Brill (Den Briel) in a surprise attack. The event is commemorated in the Dutch jingle, ‘Op één april verloor Alva zijn bril’ [On the first of April Alva lost his glasses], in which a punning allusion is made to the name of the port. This was the spark that ignited the Netherlands powder-keg. Holland and Zealand rose in revolt. William of Orange crossed the frontier from Germany with a small army and marched through the southern provinces to link up with a Huguenot force that was to have come north from France, but the massacre of the Protestants in Paris on St. Bartholomew's Eve (24th August 1572) brought this plan to naught. Left with only his own force, the Silent could do little against the troops that Alva rushed into the field. After a vain attempt on 11th and 12th September to break through to Mons, where his brother, Louis of Nassau, had been besieged since 24th May, he withdrew, not to neutral Germany this time but to belligerent Holland and Zealand. After Mons had surrendered (21st September 1572), and Spanish troops had plundered Malines (2nd October 1572), a comparative calm returned to the southern parts of the Netherlands. It lasted until four years later, when the lawless behaviour of the Spanish

2. This episode in Plantin's career has not so far been dealt with in any detail. The most important source is Plantin's correspondence (Corr., III).

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troops, culminating in the ‘Spanish Fury’ at Antwerp (4th November 1576), caused the South to take up arms as well.

The three great years of crisis in the history of the Netherlands were 1566/67, 1572, and 1576. These years were also critical in the life of Plantin. In 1566/67 the Iconoclasm and its aftermath momentarily threatened to bring his career to an untimely end, yet the happy outcome of the crisis was the phenomenal expansion of Plantin's business. In 1576 the Spanish Fury savagely and irrevocably put a stop to that expansion. Between the two events came the 1572 episode. The Sea Beggars not only deprived Alva of his glasses on All Fools' Day, they also dealt Plantin a blow which, albeit indirectly, almost finished his career as a printer in the Netherlands. Although more quickly overcome than the decline caused by the mutinous Spaniards in November 1576, this reverse was basically more dangerous because it was so completely unexpected. Plantin was like a boxer who suddenly has to absorb a treacherous blow below the belt.

Antwerp itself was not under fire in 1572, but the Scheldt was blockaded by Sea Beggars operating from Flushing, while marauding soldiers and free-booters made travelling by land a joyless occupation. Economic life was seriously affected. To express it in modern terms, in a period of full expansion Plantin had to contend with a sudden recession. It was no new problem for him: he had to face a similar difficulty in 1566/67 and had come through brilliantly. The contraction of a printing business brought fewer troubles in the sixteenth century than nowadays. Presses and other equipment represented a much smaller percentage of general running costs than the advanced technical installations of the machine age. It was possible then to take a number of presses out of operation while awaiting better times without suffering any very serious loss. Had Plantin been engaged on his usual type of work for sale in the ordinary way to his regular customers, he would have been able to weather the storm in comparative tranquillity of mind. The blow fell, however, while he was printing the Polyglot Bible, a work that was likely to bring him more fame than money, and for which he was largely dependent on subsidies from the Spanish king. To make matters worse he was also contracted to supply Philip II with large quantities of liturgical books that could only be disposed of in Spain and had to be paid for by a monarch who, surprised by the uprising, had other things to think

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about than a punctual settling of accounts with his chief printer. Plantin obtained the amounts that Philip owed him, but after 1st April the payments were made only very irregularly, while the printer had to continue to pay his workpeople and suppliers on time. The only way out for him was to borrow money, which meant burdening his business with oppressive interest charges that swallowed up the profits and threatened to make the unfortunate borrower sink still deeper into the mire.

Plantin had to make the best he could of the circumstances. He stopped ordering paper and other material. It has already been seen that the triumphant message announcing the completion of the Polyglot Bible was not altogether correct. Although he managed to finish the work on the last three volumes in this difficult period, he printed only 600 copies of them - half of the number planned.

Plantin's motto, however, was Labore et Constantia and he fought desperately to keep his head above water. After 1st April 1572 his letters to his Spanish patrons all gave utterance to the same lament: he must have money; money must be sent to him to enable him to keep to the schedule the king had imposed for the breviaries and missals. If relief did not come it would mean the final ruin of the Gulden Passer.^1.

In the same letters appear the first complaints about the state of his health.^2. Plantin's acute financial worries were beginning to affect his constitution. Although he recovered from the economic setbacks of 1572, he was never to regain his health. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that he never fully recovered from the financial pressure to which he was suddenly subjected in the spring of that year, and this steadily undermined his already uncertain health. In July 1575 his son-in-law, Jan Moretus, expressed it thus in a letter to Arias Montanus: ‘I expect my father-in-law back today from his journey to Paris. We understand that he was still well at Ghent - as is always the case when he is away, whereas daily cares and tribulations prevent him from enjoying good health with us here at home.’^3. On 22nd November 1572 Plantin wrote in his characteristically picturesque way to de Çayas, describing his vocation in these bitter words: ‘Car l'imprimerie est ung vray

1. Cf. for example Corr., III, nos. 388, 389, 394, 400 and 401.

2. Cf. for example nos. 395 (letter to Arias Montanus, late June 1572), 400 and 404.

3. Corr., IV, no. 639.

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abisme ou goufre auquel par ung labeur assidu et une constance ferme et asseurée il convient perpétuellement entendre luy jecter en la gueule et fournir tout ce qu'il est nécessaire ou autrement il dévore et engloutist son maistre mesmes et tous ceux qui s'en meslent avec luy.’ [For printing is a veritable chasm or pit, into the gaping mouth whereof it is expedient, by diligent toil and steadfastness, constantly to throw all that it requires, otherwise it will engulf and devour its master and all those who are concerned with it.]^1.

To add to his misfortunes, in June or July 1572, in the midst of his struggle for economic survival, Plantin received an order to prepare for a secret mission. Its leader was to be no less a person than de Vargas, a member of the notorious ‘Council of Blood’, though the mission itself was less sanguinary than might have been expected from this appointment. Plantin and de Vargas were entrusted with the task of removing from the dangerous Netherlands the precious manuscripts, collected there by Arias Montanus and the printer for the royal library in the Escorial, and conveying them, via Paris and Besançon, over the Alps to Milan, which was then a Spanish possession.^2.

Plantin showed little enthusiasm for the undertaking. In his letters to de Vargas the complaints about his health reached a sudden crescendo. But there was no disobeying this royal command. Late in September he at last received instructions to join de Vargas at Alva's headquarters and he set off leaden-footed for the monastery of Saint-Ghislain, from where the Spanish commander-in-chief was conducting the siege of Mons.

On 21st September the town was forced to surrender, but what happened after that cannot be precisely established. De Vargas and Alva may have considered that the South was once more peaceful enough for the king's valuable manuscripts and books to remain where they were; probably they did not want to risk evacuating them through a France that was itself in the throes of a savage civil war.^3. At all events Plantin was allowed to go

1. Corr., III, no. 438.

2. Corr., III, nos. 400 and 413. Cf. also III, no. 424. Altogether ‘onze coffres de livres escripts à la main, pacquez pour la Majesté Catholique’ [eleven cases of hand-written books, packed for His Catholic Majesty]. The inventory, dated 21st May 1572, was published by R. Beer under the title ‘Niederländische Büchererwerbungen des Benito Arias Montano für den Eskorial im Auftrage König Philipp II. von Spanien’ in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, 25, 1905, pp. v-xi.

3. The books were not dispatched to Spain - by sea, via Dunkirk - until September 1573: Beer, op. cit., p. iv.

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home; yet his homeward journey took him straight to Paris! At the beginning of November 1572, after his return to Antwerp, he wrote to de Vargas, de Çayas, and Arias Montanus, giving them a confused and not very convincing explanation of how and why he came to reach the Seine instead of the Scheldt.^1.

In the monastery of Saint-Ghislain the stock of medicinal pills was exhausted. Plantin's headaches and kidney pains were becoming intolerable. When at last he was given leave to go he made a detour to Valenciennes in order to be bled and purged. In the Hospital there he was able to satisfy his craving for palliatives. By chance the courier from Paris called in, carrying letters for Plantin from Pierre Porret. The contents of these letters were rather startling. Plantin's daughter Magdalena had been staying in Paris for some time with her sister Catherina, who had married Jean Gassen in 1571.^2. Porret now sought Plantin's permission to marry Magdalena to Egidius Beys, who assisted him in the bookselling branch of the Gulden Passer there. Porret himself was on his death-bed. As he had no near kin he wanted to sponsor this marriage and name the young couple as his heirs. Certain formalities had to be gone through, so it was natural that Plantin, having received this news, should hurriedly ride south.

From Egidius Beys's letters to his brother-in-law Jan Moretus^3. it appears that Plantin arrived in Paris on 27th September 1572, celebrated the betrothal of Magdalena to his assistant two days later, gave her in marriage to Beys on 7th October and was expected back in Paris from a journey to Rouen on 14th October, after which he was going to return to Antwerp. On 1st November he was home again, working through the correspondence that had accumulated in his absence. Among his letters were those he wrote to Arias Montanus and de Vargas explaining his unexpected, and in Spanish eyes very suspicious outing.

History records more remarkable coincidences than the urgent need for

1. See Corr., III, nos. 421 (1st November 1572, to Arias Montanus), 422 (1st November, to de Vargas), and 424 (4th November, to de Çayas). See also no. 432 (14th November, to de Çayas).

2. Concerning Magdalena and Catharina Plantin and their husbands, see pp. 154 sqq.

3. Beys wrote two letters, the first on 30th September, the second on 14th October 1572. Only the second was included in Corr., III, no. 418. That of 30th September (Arch. 77, folio 23) is reproduced in part in Stein, ‘La succursale plantinienne de Paris’, p. 36.

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pills that led Plantin to Valenciennes and caused him to meet the courier there. But when it is observed that Egidius Beys, in the joyous letters he wrote on 30th September and 14th October to Jan Moretus in Antwerp telling him of his betrothal and marriage, not only forgot to mention that Pierre Porret was mortally sick and was intending to adopt his assistant as his heir, but noted in passing that Plantin, accompanied by ‘Uncle’ Porret, was on his way to Rouen, then it must be concluded that there are discrepancies somewhere. Plantin had other motives for his sudden journey to Paris that he dared not reveal even to Arias Montanus.

On 4th November 1572 Plantin wrote to de Çayas in answer to several of the secretary's letters that had arrived while he had been away. De Çayas expressed displeasure at the fact that the deliveries of breviaries and missals had ceased, and requested an explanation. Plantin replied at some length with the familiar complaint about the financial difficulties he had to contend with. He was also able to advance a second reason why deliveries had fallen behind: his workmen, seeing that he was so busy printing for the king, had seized the opportunity to demand higher wages and had gone on strike. Plantin, however, had retaliated sharply and adroitly. He had put it about that his business was going to close down, and the rascals had eaten humble pie and come asking him to take them back.^1.

This episode has found its way into the textbooks of economic history, where it is often quoted as a sixteenth-century example of a strike and lock-out.^2. A strike, however, is a pointless weapon in times of economic recession. Why should Plantin's workmen have waited for the very worst possible moment to formulate their demands? It is also difficult to reconcile what appears in Plantin's wage-sheets for these months with what he told de Çayas. In the week beginning 23rd August 1572 Plantin had in fact dismissed many of his men, but he retained 13 out of a staff of 46. At the moment that he wrote to de Çayas, he still had only 16 men at work, a detail that he neglected to pass on to his Spanish patron. He did not begin to increase his staff again until 22nd November, when he engaged 10 more men,

1. Corr., III, no. 424. Cf. also no. 432 (letter to de Çayas, 14th November 1572).

2. For example by H. Pirenne in ‘L'importance économique et morale d'Anvers à l'époque de Plantin’ in Fêtes données en 1920... à l'occasion du quatrième centenaire de la naissance de Chr. Plantin, 1920, p. 23.

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gradually raising the number in the following months so that early in 1573 he had almost as many employees as before 23rd August 1572.^1. There was also something wrong with the explanation Plantin gave to de Çayas in the letter of 4th November.

If these conflicting statements and explanations are looked at in the light of the political events of these months it is, however, possible to extract some sense from the confusion. The key to the puzzle is the fact that the ‘strike’ at Plantin's works occurred in the week of 23rd August 1572, that is to say when the news of the St. Bartholomew's Eve massacre reached Antwerp. Plantin must have been extremely anxious about the fate of his two daughters and of his ‘brother’ Porret, and about what might have happened to his Paris bookshop. This shop in Porret's house in the rue Saint-Jacques was his last reserve, his last hope of a regular flow of ready money during the troubles in the Netherlands; if it had suffered serious damage then his fate was sealed.

It is hardly surprising that Plantin thought the safest course lay in a drastic reduction of work at his Antwerp officina while he awaited more detailed information from Paris. On top of all this he had to leave his business in its precarious state to go roaming about Hainault to no purpose. It can be imagined how the unhappy printer, worn out with anxiety, must have swallowed all the pills he could lay hands on in the camp at Mons and later in Valenciennes in an effort to alleviate his pains and soothe his nerves. As soon as he could he dashed to Paris, to find to his immense relief that all was well with his family and his shop.

Perhaps Plantin knew of Egidius Beys's affection for his daughter a little before his departure,^2. but the news of this idyll is not likely to have occasioned or even hastened his journey to Paris. Magdalena Plantin was scarcely fifteen years old and could easily wait a while longer. Nevertheless the uncertainty as to how the situation might develop in France and the Netherlands probably induced her father to give his blessing to the match immediately after his arrival in the French capital. In this way Magdalena would be sure of a protector, a very necessary provision in such unsettled

1. L. Voet, ‘The personality of Plantin’ in Gedenkboek der Plantin-dagen, 1956, pp. 208-209.

2. At any rate Plantin found it necessary in a letter of (20th - 22nd?) May 1572 to warn his daughter of carnal dangers (Corr., III, no. 388). See also p. 158.

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times. The visit probably enabled Plantin to borrow money; the journey to Rouen would have provided some of the opportunities for this. He was able to set off for Antwerp in a happier frame of mind than he had come.

At the end of August 1572 Plantin, in the impossible situation of facing economic trouble on two fronts, was thinking seriously of putting his life's work at Antwerp into liquidation and had in fact already taken the first steps in this direction: this was what he did not dare to tell his Spanish patrons. The bookshop in Paris was, however, in a sounder condition than Plantin had expected. In the Netherlands the fires of war still raged in the provinces of Holland and Zealand, but elsewhere they had been damped down. Plantin was not going to give up the struggle; there was no need to close up the Officina Plantiniana. On 16th November 1572 he wrote a new letter to de Çayas apologizing for his defeatism and giving a firm assurance that the arrears with regard to the breviaries and missals would be made up.^1. On 22nd November he reinforced his much-depleted staff with 10 men.

1. Corr., III, no. 435.

The peak years (1573-1576)

In the following years Plantin continued to bewail his shortage of money with unrelieved regularity in letters to his Spanish patrons - probably as a matter of principle rather than out of dire need. Experience had taught him that only by complaining and threatening to close his officina could Philip's paymasters be induced to settle their master's debts with anything like reasonable dispatch. The complaints themselves were at all events much more calmly formulated and lacked the pathetic tone of the 1572 letters. The momentarily interrupted expansion seems in fact to have been resumed: in 1574 and 1575 Plantin reached the zenith of his printing career.

Paper merchants, engravers, bookbinders, punch-cutters, type-founders and other suppliers and craftsmen again received an abundance of orders. The three last volumes of the Polyglot Bible were reset and the remaining 600 copies printed. The liturgical books flowed to Spain in an endless stream, to a total value of at least 80,000 to 90,000 fl.^2. At the request of Philip II,

2. According to Rooses in Musée, pp. 107-108, the total between 1571 and 1576 was 97,318 fl. 10½ st.: 9,389 fl. 8 st. for 1571 and 1572 (cf. p. 68); 21,287 fl. 17 st. for 1573; 40,293 fl. 8½ st. for 1574; 20,630 fl. 7 st. for 1575; and 5,717 fl. 10 st. for the first part of 1576. For this colossal sum Plantin supplied 18,370 breviaries (2,297 in folio, 2,194 in quarto, 11,764 in 8vo and 2,115 in 16mo); 16,755 missals (4,525 in folio, 10,930 in quarto, 1,300 in 8vo); 9,120 books of hours (3,920 in 12mo, 2,000 in 16mo, 1,100 in 24mo, 2,100 in 32mo); 3,200 hymn books (1,700 in 12mo, 1,500 in 24mo); 450 diurnals; 1,851 Offices of St. Jerome; 1,486 Offices of St. James; and 1,240 Proprium Sanctorum Hispaniae. Kingdon's figures in ‘The Plantin breviaries’, pp. 146-147, based on research into Arch. 19 and 22, differ somewhat: he puts the number of Plantin breviaries sent to Spain between 1571 and 1575 at 15,505 (2,400 in 16mo, 8,739 in 8vo, 2,200 in quarto, 2,166 in folio), and the total value of service books exported to the Peninsula at 110,136 fl. 14½ st.

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(17) Opposite: Woodcut map of Antwerp published by Pauwels van Overbeke (1568), depicting the city before the Spanish Citadel was built (during 1567-68). See also overleaf.

[p. *18]

(18) Opposite: Revised version of Van Overbeke's map (see overleaf) published in 1568. The completion of the citadel had caused considerable changes in the layout of the southern part of the city. The publisher overcame this difficulty by pasting a small sheet depicting the rebuilt area over the existing map.

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Plantin even ventured to make preparations for two new, monumental editions - an enormous antiphonary designed especially for Spain and a similarly conceived gradual - that were to be the most beautiful, or at least the most colossal typographical works ever undertaken.

At the same time dozens of other works were coming off his presses. It would appear that Plantin was striving as far as possible to publish books for which there was an assured market, or books by authors who were willing to invest a considerable amount in order to have their work printed. Plantin must have remembered the lesson of 1572, when he almost foundered through over-specialization.

New presses were put into operation. In January 1574 Plantin had sixteen presses and 55 men (32 printers, 20 compositors, and 3 proof-readers) in service.^1. These figures pose yet another Plantinian problem.^2. In many letters written after the Spanish Fury, Plantin sorrowfully recalled the days before this catastrophe when he had 150 men working for him^3. and owned 22 presses - in a few letters to de Çayas he even speaks of 23.^4. As regards the size of his staff, a number of shop assistants, maids and servants should be

1. In January 1575 it was 15 presses and a staff of 53 (27 printers, 20 type-setters and 5 proof-readers); in January 1576, 15 presses and 54 staff (30 printers, 19 type-setters and 4 proof-readers). Cf. De Roover, ‘The business organisation of the Plantin press’, p. 239.

2. First postulated by De Roover, op. cit., pp. 240-241, who showed the discrepancy between Plantin's assertions and the data provided by the pay-rolls.

3. This figure is also quoted in a petition from Plantin to the Antwerp authorities on 14th January 1575 (Corr., IV, no. 602).

4. Suppl. Corr., no. 135 (letter to Camerarius, 4th April 1577, in which i press is said to be working, 19 idle); Corr., V, no. 759 (to Blaz de Robles, 8th-16th May 1577: 21 presses, 150 workpeople), no. 765 (to Buyssetius, 15th June 1577: 20 presses), no. 787 (to Hortemberche, 16th February 1578: 22 presses, 2 sold), no. 789 (to Viperanus, February 1578: 22 presses); VI, no. 805 (to de Çayas, 19th August 1578: 5 presses sold), no. 809 (to de Çayas, September 1578: 7 presses sold, 16 remaining in Plantin's possession, although elsewhere in the letter he speaks of 22 presses which he has had working), no. 810 (to Cardinal Madrutius, September [?] 1578: 22 presses), no. 817 (to de Çayas, 20th December 1578-4th January 1579: out of 23 presses he had retained the best 16); VII, no. 1056 (to de Çayas, 21st December 1585: ‘de sorte qu'au lieu de 22 presses que j'avois desja dressée en icelle [i.e. the new premises in the Vrijdagmarkt] et 3 qui estoyent entre les mains des ouvriers qui eussent esté 25, il ne me resta place que pour les dix que je retins des milleures et les 3 commencees, vendi 9 et envoyai 3 à Leide en Hollande’). [so that instead of the 22 presses that I had already set up here and the 3 in the hands of the workmen (= the carpenters and smiths who had to make them), which would have been 25 altogether, I was left with room for only the ten best which I had kept and the three that were under construction, I sold nine and sent three to Leiden in Holland.] In the letter of April 1576, in which he tells Arias Montanus of the forthcoming move to the Vrijdagmarkt, Plantin talks of a hall in which he could set up 16 presses in a row, while 5 more presses could he housed elsewhere in the building (Corr., V, no. 711). See p. 83.

[p. 82]

added to the approximately 55 men who worked in the printing office itself, and in addition there was a small host of punch-cutters and type-founders, wood-cutters, copper-engravers, bookbinders and others who counted Plantin as one of their principal employers. The total arrived at in this way cannot have been much below 150.^1.

The difference of six presses is, however, difficult to explain. During these boom years Plantin put out a certain amount of work to other printers, but the presses thus engaged do not appear to be taken into account in Plantin's statements: he says explicitly that he sold six presses (seven presses are mentioned in one letter to de Çayas) and retained sixteen. Such statements are authoritative - but so are Plantin's wage-sheets.^2. The most plausible explanation is that the master of the Gulden Passer had a number of presses made, in anticipation of a new expansion of the business, which had not been put into use at the time of the Spanish Fury, and which were sold

1. A list of names in Plantin's handwriting has been preserved which bears the heading ‘Noms des compagnons lesquelz se sont retrouves besongnants en l'imprimerie de C. Plantin estans en nombre de I^eXLIX personnes’ (Arch. 23, folios 26-27). [Names of the journeymen who have laboured in the printing office of C. Plantin, being in number 149 persons.] It was probably this list and this total which influenced Plantin's statements in his letters. The list does not give the number of men employed at any particular time, but it should be considered as representing the total number of journeymen who had worked in the printing press between c. 1572 and c. 1576. Many of them only worked for Plantin for a short period. Thus 53 men were at work in January 1575; this number did not fluctuate much during 1575, but 76 names are entered on the wage-sheets for that year (De Roover, ‘The business organisation...’, pp. 241-242).

2. The inventory of Plantin's stock of type compiled in May 1575 also mentions only 15 presses (Arch. 43, folio 82).

[p. 83]

for cash immediately after the disaster.^1. But even with 16 presses Plantin remains the greatest printer of the period from the Renaissance until the end of the eighteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution demolished the old norms. He was a giant, towering above his colleagues.

The Gulden Passer became Plantin's property in 1565, but the building was too small for his expanding business. The printer rented seven other dwellings in the Kammenstraat and the adjoining Valkstraat. After losing the use of two of these, Plantin had to seek a better solution.^2. In April 1576 he mentioned to Arias Montanus that he had been able to rent a spacious building, not far from his house in the Kammenstraat, where he could easily install sixteen presses in a row and a further five in another part of the premises. The building included suitable living quarters and had a large garden. He reported that he hoped to move in on 24th June, St. John the Baptist's Day.^3.

After quite a series of moves Plantin had finally arrived at the same Vrijdagmarkt where his goods and chattels had been publicly sold fourteen years before, and where the Plantin house still proudly stands. The new building, with its entrance in the Hoogstraat and its garden bounded by the Vrijdagmarkt and the Heilig Geeststraat, became the permanent home of his printing-press. Naturally it was named the Gulden Passer.

Plantin gave up most of the storage places he had rented when he made this final move, but he kept the former ‘Golden Compasses’ in the Kammenstraat as a bookshop, occupied and managed for Plantin by his son-in-law Jan Moretus.^4. On 1st February 1576 he installed Frans Raphelengius, the other son-in-law who lived in Antwerp, in a bookshop by the north door of the cathedral: this was presumably done for the sake of maintaining the family equilibrium. Raphelengius continued to work for Plantin as a proof-reader while his wife, Plantin's eldest daughter Margareta, looked after the shop.^5. Trade prospered, but new storm-clouds were gathering over the Netherlands.

1. Compare the wording of the letter of 21st December 1585 to de Çayas (Corr., VII, no. 1056), quoted in p. 81 n. 4.

2. See also p. 262 concerning Plantin's shortage of accommodation in this period.

3. Corr., V, no. 711.

4. Concerning Jan Moretus, Martina Plantin's husband, see pp. 151 sqq.

5. Compare p. 150 below.

[p. 84]

The years of turmoil (1576-1582)^1.

In 1572 Holland and Zealand had risen against Philip II. Alva and his successor Requesens had been able temporarily to confine the conflagration to these two provinces, but they had not been able to put it out. The king's money was frittered away by an endless series of skirmishes and sieges. The royal troops received their pay at ever longer intervals and discipline broke down. The increasing outbursts of ill temper on the part of the soldiers led to mounting tension in the areas that had remained loyal to Philip. Resentment and hatred grew among Catholics as well as Protestants.

With the death of Requesens on 5th March 1576 the dam burst. The Spanish regiments that had been left to their fate made off towards the south to claim their arrears of pay, by force of arms if necessary. Adroitly fanned by the agents of William of Orange, the long pent-up hatred of that Spanish rule which was embodied in the Spanish mercenaries flared up until the south, too, was aflame.

In the chaos the Provincial States took control as best they could and raised troops. The Walloon regiments went over en masse; the German mercenaries remained neutral. The Spanish troops found themselves alone in the midst of a hostile population which was feverishly taking up arms against them. Threatened with annihilation, their scattered units fell back on the citadel at Antwerp, where they concentrated and regrouped themselves. Units from the army of the States General arrived to besiege them.

Plantin's letters reflected the growing tension. On 27th September 1576 he complained to Buyssetius that the king's veterans were holding all the roads leading into Antwerp and bringing traffic to a standstill.^2. His letter of 11th October to Arias Montanus was much more anxious in tone:^3. business was going very badly (this was the month in which Plantin dismissed a large number of workmen and proof-readers)^4.; in the preceding two months he had not earned enough to buy his bread; troops hostile to Spain were taking up their positions; many citizens had already fled. Plantin, however, was not going to give way to defeatism. He had not evacuated as much as a single sheet of paper and was advising everyone to stay put

1. Discussed in detail by Rooses, Musée, pp. 193-212. Cf. also Clair, Plantin, pp. 130 sqq.

2. Corr., V, no. 741.

3. Corr., V, no. 743.

4. Cf. De Roover, ‘The business organisation, etc.’, p. 243.

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(19) Opposite: The Spanish Fury at Antwerp (4th November 1576). Etching by Frans Hogenberg (c. 1540-c. 1590) showing the fighting in front of the City Hall, which was burnt down together with the surrounding residential quarters.

[p. *20]

(20) Opposite: The Spanish Fury at Antwerp. Another etching by Frans Hogenberg showing scenes of pillage and slaughter in the streets.

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The printer's moderate optimism reflected the attitude of the majority of the population of Antwerp, who felt that all would end well. The Spanish seemed totally demoralized and would certainly leave the strongly defended city alone. Yet on the fateful Sunday of 4th November 1576, at about noon, these ‘demoralized’ Spaniards left the citadel in closed, well-disciplined ranks. In a moment they were through the barricades that were to have protected the town. The army of the States General gave way at the first onset. Only a few scattered groups of citizens put up a desperate but unavailing resistance for a time. For three days the great city knew the horrors of the Spanish Fury. Hundreds of citizens were killed; the town hall and the surrounding blocks of houses went up in flames; storehouses and dwellings were systematically plundered. Antwerp survived the storm, but la bella, nobilissima et amplissima città had been dealt a blow from which it was never able to recover. Its growth and prosperity had been violently checked.

The Spanish Fury also put an end to Plantin's own expansion. His son-in-law Jan Moretus laconically wrote on the fly-leaf of the Journal de la librairie of 1576:^1. ‘Le 4^e de novembre 1576, fust par assault pillée, et bruslée la ville d'Anvers par les Espagnolz soldats lesquels y faijsoijnt aussi aultres oultrages grands, meurtres, etc. Dieu par sa divine grace doint que n'advienne plus semblable ni a ceste ni a aultre ville et que puissions nous amander toutz.’ In a few letters that he wrote to friends and acquaintances shortly after the disastrous Sunday, Jan Moretus furnished additional details in just as sober a fashion. Later his father-in-law occasionally let drop a few particulars that shed only a little light on the hours of anguish that Plantin and his household endured in their burning and pillaged city. ‘Car ayant avec nous tous (dont Dieu soit loué) eschappé la mort souventesfois quand les soldatz sont le 4^e de novembre passé, entrez en la ville d'Anvers en la furie à laquelle sont commis grands meurtres, bruslements des maijsons et saccagement general’, is how Moretus expressed it in a letter to J. Mofflin, Philip II's chaplain, in November of that year.^2. Plantin and his family escaped death and ill-usage, but on three occasions they had to put out fires that were

1. Arch. 54.

2. Corr., V, no. 746.

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threatening the press, and on nine occasions they were obliged to ransom their lives and property from the mutineers.^1.

Luis Perez, a Spanish merchant living in Antwerp, staked his life and his possessions during these dramatic days to save his Antwerp friends, and to some extent relieved the distress that his fellow-countrymen had caused. It was Luis Perez who advanced Plantin the money to ransom his business from destruction and pillage. The sum of 2,867 fl. was entered under this heading in Plantin's books and charged to the Spanish merchant's account.^2.

Plantin's financial losses, however, amounted to much more than this. The mutineers stole his ready cash, and for some weeks he was obliged to keep thirty soldiers and sixteen horses at his own expense in his houses in the Hoogstraat and the Kammenstraat - and a large part of his household effects disappeared with these soldiers.^3. In a letter of 22nd November 1576, Abraham Ortelius estimated the damage suffered by his friend as a result of the Spanish Fury at more than 10,000 fl.^4.

1. There are details of the Spanish Fury in the following letters: Moretus to Arias Montanus, November 1576 (Corr., V, no. 745); Plantin to Blaz de Robles, 8th-16th May 1577 (Corr., V, no. 759, in which it is said that Plantin had to ransom his printing press nine times); Plantin to Viperanus, February 1578 (Corr., V, no. 789: nine times ransomed, had to put out fires in the printing-shop on three occasions); Plantin to de Çayas, September 1578 (Corr., VI, no. 809: had to ransom his own life and those of his sons-in-law three times, and the press and the stocks of books seven times); Plantin to Cardinal Madrutius, September [?] 1578 (Corr., VI, no. 810: nine times ransomed); Plantin to de Çayas, 1st January 1582 (Corr., VII, no. 972: ‘our shop as well as the big house which I had... rented’ ransomed nine times); and Corr., VII, no. 1014 (‘Relation d'aulcuns griefz’, 31st December 1583: ransomed eight times). Cf. also n. 4.

2. Arch. 19, folio 103: ‘Luiz Perez doibt avoir ad ult. Novembris-[1576] 2867 fl. 8 st., cest pour aultant que par compte faict il a debourse pour Christophle Plantin pour payer sa ranzon aux soldatz entrez audit mois par assault en la ville d'Anvers.’ Cf. Rooses, Musée, p. 196.

3. Plantin to de Çayas, September 1578 (Corr., VII, no. 809).

4. Suppl. Corr., no. 133: ‘Plantinum tuo nomine salutare non potui; Parisios enim profectus est, sed post urbis cladem, quam illi ultra decem millia florenorum constitisse credo’ [I have not been able to greet Plantin on your behalf; he has in fact set out to Paris since the destruction of our city, which has, I believe, cost him more than ten thousand guilders]. In his letter of 4th April 1577 to Camerarius (Suppl. Corr., no. 135) Plantin also quotes a figure: ‘coacti decies nostram vitam, libros, liberos, officinam et aedes decem milibus aureorum redimere’ [ten times we were compelled to ransom our lives, books, children, printing office and house for ten thousand gold pieces]. ‘Gold pieces’ presumably means guilders. Taken literally, this letter would indicate that Plantin had to buy his safety ten times, and that this cost him 10,000 fl. It is more likely that he meant to imply that this was his estimate of the total damage suffered.

[p. 87]

It was a heavy blow. As on many previous occasions, the very existence of the Officina Plantiniana was threatened, but in the emergency Plantin recovered all his former energy. His ailments vanished as by magic. Although it was Jan Moretus who set the minds of friends and acquaintances at rest immediately after the event, this was only because his father-in-law had already left Antwerp to seek financial deliverance for his business. Only a few weeks after the Spanish Fury, when the soldiers were still quartered in his houses, Plantin had taken the road to Liège to borrow money from his friend Livinus Torrentius, then vicar-general of the diocese of Liège and later to become bishop of Antwerp.^1. From Liège he journeyed to Paris to negotiate with his ‘brother’ Porret and his other French business associates.^2.

The search for money led him from Paris, by way of Cologne, to Frankfurt,^3. where he was fortunate enough to find his old partner Karel van Bomberghen, who lent him the generous sum of 9,600 fl. ‘pour subvenir à ses payements en laditte foire après la pillerie d'Anvers’.^4. Plantin did not reach Antwerp again until the end of April 1577, after an absence of nearly six months, but with sufficient money and credit to continue the business.

Later in the year he sacrificed the branch in Paris that had rendered him such great service for ten years. He sold it on 22nd August 1577 to the Paris printer and bookseller Michel Sonnius for the sum of 7,500 fl., although according to what Plantin later asserted, it was worth more than twice this amount.^5. The bitterness of Plantin's son-in-law, Egidius Beys, who had been given the management of the branch, was great and to some extent understandable: in some very interesting letters the printer tried to make it clear to his angry son-in-law that there had been no other course left to him.^6. The sale of a number of presses and other equipment provided Plantin with

1. Cf. Jan Moretus's letter to Arias Montanus, November 1576 (Corr., V, no. 745).

2. Cf. Jan Moretus's letter to Pamelius, 22nd December 1576 (Corr., V, no. 749).

3. Cf. Jan Moretus's letter to Arias Montanus, 13th February 1577 (Corr., V, no. 754).

4. On 6th April 1577 (Arch. 19, folio 110: the name of Charles [Karel] van Bomberghen was scratched out and altered to Van den Berghen. See p. 49 for the reason for this action). Cf. Rooses, Musée, p. 196, and see also Plantin's letter of 21st February 1581 to Karel van Bomberghen (Corr., VI, no. 920).

5. Stein, ‘La succursale plantinienne de Paris’, p. 38; Rooses, Musée, pp. 171-172.

6. Cf. p. 159.

[p. 88]

some further ready money.^1. Arias Montanus sent forty guilders from his slender income - a drop in the ocean, but an act of kindness for which Plantin, greatly moved, wrote to thank him on 3rd May 1577.^2.

Business could be resumed, albeit at a much more moderate rate. The great expansion was finally at an end; the years of plenty were over, the lean years had begun. Nevertheless, these lean years seem to have proceeded at first in a not altogether unsatisfactory manner, taking into account the conditions of the times. It is at all events very characteristic that Plantin should have embarked on a series of quite substantial personal expenditures in this period of recession. In June 1579, he bought the house that he had moved into only three years before.^3. Between 1579 and 1580 he had a series of building schemes carried out on his new property, including the erection of a new wing in which to set up his presses - the same wing and the same hall where the presses still stand after three centuries of intensive activity - and paid for this more than 7,435 fl.^4. On 26th February 1581, for the sum of 170 fl. he paid off all the annual payments of 14 fl. due on the country house he had bought at Berchem in 1569, thus finally becoming the complete owner of this retreat.^5.

During Plantin's absence his sons-in-law Jan Moretus and Frans Raphelengius finished off the orders in hand, first with one, then two, and subsequently with three presses.^6. The master's return caused a rapid increase in activity. Early in 1578 there were six, and by the beginning of 1583 as many as ten presses back in operation.^7. This, too, indicates comparative prosperity.

1. ‘Ex praelis nostris vendidi jam septem e quibus accepi plus minus 500 fl.’ [I have already sold seven of our presses, on account of which I have received about 500 fl.]: letter from Plantin to de Çayas, September 1578 (Corr., VI, no. 809).

2. Corr., V, no. 757.

3. More accurately half of the house. Between 1576 and 1579 Plantin had to relinquish the part facing the Hoogstraat and had to be content with the part of the structure, with the garden, facing the Vrijdagmarkt and the Heilig Geeststraat. See pp. 268-270.

4. See pp. 272-273 concerning these building schemes.

5. On 2nd March 1582 he also paid 377 fl. 13 st. for a garden of 24¼ roeden (approximately one acre) at Berchem. Cf. Rooses, Musée, p. 210; F. Donnet, Le ‘Papen Moer’ à Berchem, 1921, pp. 33 sqq.

6. Cf. Plantin's letter to Hortemberche, 16th February 1578 (Corr., V, no. 787).

7. Six in January 1578; 5 in January 1579; 7 in January 1580; 8 in January 1581; 7 in January 1582; and 10 in January 1583. Cf. Appendix 5.

[p. *21]

(21) Opposite: Plantin's deed of appointment as printer to the States General, dated Brussels 17th May 1578.

[p. *22]

(22) Overleaf: Pages from Hendrik Janssen Barrefelt's Imagines et figurae Bibliorum. Though Plantin printed this work by his new religious mentor, he did not mention his own name (nor the author's, for that matter). The names Jacobus Villanus and Renatus Christianus are both fictitious. The lines in question were even printed separately and pasted on the pages. The dates 1580 and 1581 must also be regarded as fictitious: several plates are actually dated 1582. Probably Plantin tried to circumvent possible difficulties through antedating the publication.

[p. *23]

[p. *24]

thrésor caché au champ the French translation of his standard

[p. 89]

How did Plantin succeed in maintaining a rate of work that was very brisk considering the events of those years and how did he adapt his activity to the changed circumstances? The Spanish Fury, and the general revolt of the Netherlands that followed it, brought the financial transactions between Plantin and Philip II to an abrupt end. The flow of breviaries, missals and other liturgical works intended for Spain diminished from day to day. The printer does not seem to have lamented this fact unduly; at all events there are not very many traces of regret in his correspondence. The relations with Philip II had brought grist to the mill for Plantin, but the endless wrangling with the Spanish officials to obtain punctual payment of the money owed him must have demanded much of his patience and his nerves. However painful and disastrous the peremptory ending of the transactions with Spain may have been, it is not impossible that Plantin himself may have greeted it with a deep sigh of relief.^1.

In the following years the printer merely tried to obtain reimbursement for the expenses he had incurred in printing new breviaries and missals, and in monumental ‘choir books’ (antiphonaries and graduals) intended for Spain. These would have been the most beautiful works ever printed, but because of the Spanish Fury no more than a start was made on their production.

In this matter Plantin fought with great trenchancy and stubbornness, and sent detailed statements to de Çayas and his other Spanish patrons and, on 31st December 1583, he even compiled a lengthy and vehement memorandum: ‘Relation simple et veritable d'aulcuns griefz que moy Christophle Plantin ay souffert despuis quinze ans ou environ pour avoir obey au commandement et service de Sa Majesté sans que j'en aye receu payement ne recompense.’^2.

In this ‘relation’ he estimates the expenses incurred at about 10,000 fl. for the breviaries and missals, and at 76,000 fl. for the ‘grands livres de chant pro choro’; a total, therefore, of 86,000 fl. In the ledger in which Plantin wound up his financial transactions with Philip II, the printer showed that

1. After the recapture of Antwerp by Philip's forces, Plantin rejected proposals made by the Spaniards that he should continue working for the king, and persistently refused to shoulder this particular burden again. Cf. Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1235 (27th March 1587), no. 1279 (5th July 1587), and no. 1283 (21st July 1587).

2. Corr., VII, no. 1014.

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he had already become much more moderate and only 41,175 fl. was charged to the king's account.

Max Rooses, however, has convincingly shown that there are one or two things wrong even with this revised account; that in the account to Philip are included a number of bills for paper and other materials that were in fact ordered for the Spanish king, but were subsequently used by Plantin for other purposes, and for which he received payment. A total sum of 7,775 fl. remained for the preparation of materials (punches, matrices, woodcuts for initials, and so on) that Plantin was able to utilize later, but which nevertheless represented an unnecessary outlay.^1.

The grievances that Plantin avowed himself to be nursing against Philip II were, therefore, not so important as he represented them. The author has the impression that Plantin inflated these ‘griefz’ not only, and perhaps not even primarily, to obtain compensation, but also in order to justify to some extent the anti-Spanish acts he performed in these years by harping on the injustice done to him and the large financial losses he had suffered in the service of the Spanish monarch. This in no way alters the fact that even this amount of ‘only’ 7,775 fl., added to the other losses occasioned by the Spanish Fury, placed a new and heavy burden on Plantin's shoulders.

The worst aspect of the situation, both then and subsequently, was the fact that the fruitful collaboration with Philip II had been brusquely ended. Fortunately for the Gulden Passer, Plantin, after the crisis of 1572, had not specialized exclusively in the preparation of liturgical books for Spain. He had continued to bring out other work, and kept up his contacts with French and German publishers and printers. The loss of the Spanish market put a stop to his great expansion, although the change-over to the ‘ordinary market’ was effected with comparative ease and speed.

It was in these turbulent years, in fact, that Plantin published many of the works which, by their contents or illustrations, were to establish his fame through the centuries: an impressive number of herbals by Dodoens, Clusius, and Lobelius; the splendid Italian and French editions of the ‘Description of the Netherlands’ by Ludovico Guicciardini; treatises by Justus Lipsius; editions of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of Abraham Ortelius; the monumental music editions of Philip de Monte, Andries Pevernage,

1. Rooses, Musée, pp. 208-209.

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Jacob de Kerle, and Georges de la Hèle; the magnificent French Bible of 1578 and the Latin Bible of 1583; together with a few other liturgical works that were now intended for a more local market.

A perusal of Plantin's account books for these years, however, shows that a significant percentage of these publications were printed ‘to order’, and that their costs were wholly or partially defrayed by the authors, or that their production was financed by other publishers - principally Michel Sonnius of Paris and Arnold Mylius of Cologne.

Plantin was able to continue printing on a relatively large scale; his officina still presented the appearance of a nest of industrious ants, but the freedom of action and personal initiative of the master of the Gulden Passer were severely restricted. From this time onward he appears to have been much more an ordinary printer, working to order, than the bold publishing printer of former years.

Meanwhile in the Southern Netherlands, too, the charge had been lit. The whole of the Netherlands was now in revolt against Spanish rule. Plantin found himself pitched into a maelstrom of unleashed passions. He was offered the opportunity of building up a new life elsewhere. In the summer of 1577 he received an offer from the French king, Henry III, to establish himself in Paris with the title of ‘royal printer for ten languages’ (Hebrew, Chaldean [i.e. Aramaic], Syriac, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and ‘Flemish’ [Dutch]) and with an annuity of 200 écus. The printer recalled this offer, and acknowledged once more his indebtedness to the French king in the preface to the fourth part - the Francica - of the posthumous Opera of Goropius Becanus, published in 1580 and dedicated to Henry III. By September 1577, however, he had already turned down the proposition, politely but very firmly.^1.

In 1581 he received an equally dazzling offer from the Duke of Savoy to set himself up in Turin.^2. In a letter of 13th January 1582, Plantin declared himself ready to accept the proposition, on condition that his installations

1. Corr., V, no. 775 (letter from Plantin to Arias Montanus, 6th September 1577: offer refused), no.778 (to Pontus de Tyard Bissi, presumably the person who had approached him on behalf of the King of France, 4th October 1577); Corr., VI, no. 851 (to Buyssetius, 10th December 1579, p. 109: printer to the King of France in ten languages), no. 887 (dedication to Henry III in J. Goropus Becanus's Opera, August 1580). Cf. Rooses, Musée, p. 212.

2. Cf. the letter of 19th December 1581 from Charles Paschal, agent for the ‘company’ of the Turin publishers, who, with the Duke of Savoy's backing, tried to persuade Plantin to move to the Duchy (Corr., VII, no. 968).

[p. 92]

were bought up so that he could pay off his creditors.^1. He was then asked to make an estimate and to send the figures to Turin.^2. According to what Plantin stated in his ‘Relation d'aulcuns griefz’ of 31st December 1583, his conditions were accepted, and yet the printer again allowed the negotiations to fall through.^3.

Why did he do this? In his correspondence with the representatives of the French king and the Duke of Savoy, Plantin obviously worded his refusal very carefully; in the lengthy letters he exchanged with pro-Spanish elements he emphasized that he had remained in Antwerp at the request of Madrid and out of loyalty to Philip II. But in a number of letters to intimate friends (including his letter of 6th September 1577 to Arias Montanus) he brought forward only one reason: that he did not want to leave the Netherlands where he had spent the most pleasant years of his life.

In spite of all the difficulties, Plantin decided to remain faithful to Antwerp, his adopted city. This made great demands, however, on his diplomatic talents. In many letters Plantin poignantly outlined his attitude to the events of the times. He repeatedly compared himself to a mariner seeking to bring his frail craft to a safe harbour over a turbulent, reef-strewn sea: ‘De manière que sommes contraints de vagabonder au gré des vents impétueux et comme les vagues nous jectent ores deça ores dela. L'esprit toutesfois demeurant ferme et tranquille en Dieu lequel je prie avoir pitié de nous et nous ramener finalement au vray port asseuré.’^4.

The Spanish Fury hastened the conclusion of the Pacification of Ghent. The Netherlands, led in theory by the States General, combined to drive out the mercenaries of Spain. Catholics and Protestants were united by their common dislike of the Spanish soldier. Philip's new governor of the

1. Letter from Plantin to Paschal, 13th January 1582 (Corr., VII, no. 974).

2. Letter from Paschal to Plantin, 13th May 1582 (Corr., VII, no. 985).

3. Corr., VII, no. 1014, p. 130. These attemps to entice Plantin to Turin are discussed in Rooses, Musée, p. 212.

4. Letter to de Çayas, 3rd November 1581 (Corr., VII, no. 959). Other examples are: Corr., VI, no. 836 (to Turrianus, 22nd-28th August 1579), no. 840 (to de Çayas, 28th September-6th October 1579), no. 848 (to Turrianus, November 1579) and no. 851 (to Buyssetius, 10th December 1579).

[p. *25]

(24) Opposite: Christophe Plantin. Engraving by Hendrik Goltzius (1558-1616) in a collection of poems dedicated to Plantin's memory: Epigrammata funebria ad Christophori Plantini architypographi regii manes, 1590.

[p. *26]

(25) Though in 1578 appointed ‘Printer to the States General’, the body leading the revolt against King Philip II, Plantin continued using his title ‘The King's Archprinter’, at least up to 1581, when the king was solemnly abjured by the rebels.

[p. 93]

Netherlands, Don Juan of Austria, had arrived in Luxembourg on the very eve of the Spanish Fury. Negotiations were opened which led to an agreement early in 1577. The Netherlands would remain loyal to Philip II on condition that the Spanish troops were withdrawn. By the end of April the tercios were on their way to Italy.

Many problems - in particular the thorny question of religion - were left in abeyance. Clashes between the new governor and the States General became more frequent and more violent. On 24th July 1577 Don Juan took possession of the fortress of Namur in a surprise attack and recalled the Spanish troops. The States General hurriedly raised an army of their own. The conflict was continued more violently than ever.

William of Orange was at last able to move out of Holland and Zealand, and on 23rd September 1577 he entered Brussels in triumph. He tried to reconcile fire and water, to bring Calvinists and Catholics together in war to the bitter end against Spain. Although William dominated the political scene, the hostility and intrigues of the nobility and the need to acquire allies forced him to give at least some appearance of authority to ambitious foreign princes who attempted to win a kingdom for themselves in the Netherlands: to Archduke Matthias of Austria, son of Emperor Rudolph II; to the Count Palatine John Casimir; to Francis, Duke of Anjou and Alençon, brother of King Henry III of France.

Don Juan died on 1st October 1578. His lieutenant, Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, succeeded him as governor of the small area of the Southern Netherlands that was still under the Spanish authority. William of Orange had found a worthy opponent in this military genius and astute diplomat. Time had by no means simplified William's problems. Religious dissension destroyed the original unity and cooled the enthusiasm of many. The excesses of the Calvinist Republic at Ghent produced violent reactions among the Walloons, who had remained predominantly Catholic. The ‘malcontents’ of Artois and Hainault joined together to form the Union of Arras (6th January 1579), and a few months later, on 17th May 1579, they concluded a peace treaty with Farnese. The new governor had obtained a good spring-board for his reconquista of the Netherlands. He took Maastricht on 29th June 1579: the reconquest had begun.

The rebels remained divided by political intrigue. They put an end to the

[p. 94]

fiction that they were fighting in the name of Philip II against his evil generals: on 26th July 1581 the States General solemnly renounced their allegiance to the Spanish monarch. But in whose favour? The reins of government in fact remained in the hands of William of Orange, but he made as little attempt to have himself recognized as the official head of the rebels as he had before the abjuration. Count Palatine John Casimir did no more than take a look at the Low Countries and then disappear again. In 1581 a disillusioned Matthias of Austria took the road back to Vienna poorer than he had come.

The stage was therefore free for the Duke of Anjou who, after an armed intervention in August 1581, entered the Netherlands again via Antwerp early in 1582. The scheming duke was of the opinion that he had been given too little authority and tried by means of a military coup to take possession of some pawns with which to dictate his terms. On 17th January 1583 his troops attacked Antwerp, Dendermonde, and Dunkirk, but this furie française failed miserably. The duke's role in the Netherlands was played out and with him went all hope of French aid. On the other hand the members of the Union of Arras gave permission for Spanish mercenaries to be used, and the tercios appeared once more in the Netherlands.

The tide soon began to turn in Philip's favour. By the end of 1582 Farnese had already retaken the whole of Wallonia and considerable areas of Flanders and Brabant, while his troops threatened the rebel flank from Limburg and Friesland. In the spring of 1583 he was able to start on the systematic reconquest of the south. Slowly and surely, like a juggernaut, the Spanish army advanced, methodically besieging and reducing one town after another.

It was this world in arms that Plantin refused to leave. It was through this tempest of raging political and religious passion that he sought to chart a course to safety.

The subject of the Spanish Fury was dealt with in a very restrained manner in Plantin's letters (most of which were actually addressed to supporters of the Spanish): simply a sober statement of the facts without useless reproaches or jeremiads. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that the events of those tragic days in November 1576 did little to increase the printer's enthusiasm for the Spanish cause. The fact that the rebels were in command of a large

[p. 95]

part of the Netherlands, and of Antwerp itself from the middle of 1577 on, naturally helped to determine his attitude.

He seems to have been struck most forcibly by the change of mood in the Netherlands. In a letter of July 1578 he begged Arias Montanus to inform Philip of his subjects' new frame of mind. In his racy style Plantin told how avaricious merchants, and artisans who had formerly been slaves to the pleasures of bottle and bed, now bore arms with sober purpose and deadly seriousness, even beginning to find enjoyment in martial pursuits; how they swore not to lay down those arms until final victory was theirs; how the craftsmen were materially better off: whereas previously they had worked only three days a week and spent the other four in carousing, they now devoted one day to military training and laboured strenuously through the other six. If the king wanted peace he would have to compromise.^1.

Without actually renouncing Philip II, Plantin began to act in a manner that was rather surprising for a royal prototypographus. To begin with he became printer to the States General, the body that was officially leading the revolt against the Spanish monarch.^2. Plantin himself took the initiative. In an undated petition he asked their Excellencies of the States General, ‘very humbly’, for the sole right of printing their publications. His request was granted on 27th April 1578.^3. Plantin's appointment was ratified on 17th May of that year. In exchange for the monopoly of printing ordinances issued by the States General, Plantin was to supply the first 300 copies of each publication free, and would be paid at a rate of one stuiver per sheet for anything in excess of that number.^4.

On 10th October 1578 Plantin presented the States General with a bill for 312 fl. 15 st., with a request for speedy payment so that he might give his

1. Corr., V, no. 801.

2. M. Schneider gives interesting information about Plantin as printer to the States General in De voorgeschiedenis van de ‘Algemeene Landsdrukkerij’, 1939, pp. 24-25. See also Rooses, Musée, p. 198; E. Valvekens, ‘Prenten uit de xvi^e eeuw. Een privilegium der rebellen voor Christoffel Plantin, 8 februari 1580’ in De Standaard, 10th February 1940 (Cf. Suppl. Corr., no. 247).

3. H.J. Slenk, ‘Christopher Plantin and the States General: some new documents’ in De Gulden Passer, 43, 1965, pp. 248-264. The discovery of these new documents by Mr. Slenk puts an end to the discussion of whether Plantin served the States General willingly or whether he was more or less compelled to do so (cf. Sabbe, De meesters van den Gulden Passer, p. 53; Schneider, De voorgeschiedenis van de ‘Algemeene Landsdrukkerij’, p. 25).

4. Corr., V, no. 793.

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workmen their wages ‘et continuer de les tenir prest au commandement et service des Seigneuries et du bien publicq de la patrie’. The account was agreed to by the States General on 25th October 1578, but it was not until 30th September of the following year, after repeated requests, that Plantin received the money. The States General were even worse than Philip II at paying up.^1.

Plantin also approached Anjou, who was attempting to oust Philip from the Netherlands, humbly beseeching the Duke on his arrival in Antwerp to grant him the honour of becoming the ducal printer. From 17th April 1582 he was permitted to style himself as ‘the duke's printer’,^2. a title and a function that he promptly and understandably dropped after the ‘French Fury’ of January 1583.

Plantin also became official printer to the city of Antwerp in this period. Originally his ambition had not extended as far as this. At the end of 1578 he asked the magistrate for financial support in his need: an annual grant with which to pay the rent of his printing-press - about 400 fl. - would help considerably towards keeping the business going, and in return for this he would supply one copy of everything that he printed and his services would always be available to the city authorities.^3. The magistrate modified this proposition. On 17th January 1579 it was decided that Plantin should be given 300 fl. a year. In return the master of the Gulden Passer would print all municipal ordinances and give the magistrate one copy of each work that he produced and also one copy of any book that he might receive in exchange for his own editions.^4. Thus Plantin became Antwerp's official printer, an office which he and his successors held until 1705.

In spite of this appointment and the fact that he had been printer to the States General since May 1578, Plantin continued for some time to call him-

1. Following Schneider, Voorgeschiedenis, p. 25, based on the archives of the States General. Cf. also Arch. 18, folio 292. This section of the Plantinian archives (the ledger for 1572-1589) contains other details about Plantin's relations with ‘Messieurs les Estatz Generaux’: in March and April 1578, before he had been appointed their official printer, he delivered work worth 173 fl. 19 st., paid for on 20th June 1578 (folio 268); the work delivered at the end of 1578, in 1579 and 1580, representing a total of 426 fl. 4¾st., was not paid for in cash but in what were termed ‘licentes’ (folio 383).

2. Corr., VII, no. 983 (Plantin's petition, with a note added by the duke, 17th April 1582). Cf. also Rooses, Musée, p. 202.

3. Corr., VI, no. 814.

4. Rooses, Musée, p. 199.

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self the ‘King's Printer’ (Architypographus Regius; 's Conincx Drucker; Imprimeur du Roy) on the title-pages of his books. This should not be seen as excessive loyalty to his sovereign; Plantin was merely maintaining the fiction whereby the rebels fought against Philip II in the name of Philip II. After that monarch had been formally abjured in 1581, Plantin began openly to use his title of ‘der Generale Staten drucker’ [printer to the States General] and also, in 1582, that of printer to the Duke of Anjou. He carefully requested his friends not to address him as royal printer in the future.^1. Nevertheless it was in this capacity, theoretically at least, that Plantin published a series of works in 1579-81^2. dedicated to or commissioned by Matthias of Austria, who was trying to supplant Philip II,^3. and William of Orange, Philip's mortal enemy.^4. Similarly, in 1582, he brought out the beautifully illustrated La joyeuse et magnifique entrée de Monseigneur François, fils de France et frère unique du Roy [Francis of Anjou and Alençon]... en sa très renommée ville d'Anvers.^5.

When William of Orange visited Antwerp in 1579, the royal printer composed enthusiastic verses in his honour and when on 14th December of that year the prince and his wife, Charlotte of Bourbon, graced the workshop in the Vrijdagmarkt with a visit, Plantin hastened to rhyme and to print two new eulogistic poems. One of them bore the words: ‘Faict et imprimé presents les tresillustres Prince et Princesse d'Orange, venus voir l'Imprimerie de Christophle Plantin.’^6.

1. Corr., VI, no. 955 (letter to Metellus, 11th-20th October 1581).

2. Cf. also Rooses, Musée, p. 202.

3. Publication in honour of Mathias of Austria: J.B. Houwaert, Sommare beschrijvinghe vande triumphelijcke Incomst vanden doorluchtighen ende hooghgheboren Aerts-hertoge Matthias, binnen die Princelijcke stadt van Brussele, int' jaer ons Heeren MDLXXVIII, den XVIII dach Januarij.

4. Publications in honour of William of Orange: J.B. Houwaert, Declaratie van die triumphante incompst vanden Doorluchtighen ende Hooghegeboren Prince van Oraingnien binnen die Princelijcke Stadt van Brussele geschiet int' iaer [1578] den [18] Septembris; N. Meyerus, Epinicium seu gratulatio ad... Guilielmum, comitem Nassou, principem Auraicum, 1582. Also a Latin epitaphium in honour of Charlotte of Bourbon, the prince's wife (Library of the Plantin-Moretus Museum, Folio Varia I, no. 2). Dedicated to William the Silent were e.g.: A. de Pasino's Discours sur plusieurs poincts de l'architecture de guerre, 1579; Estreines ou Nouvel An de... Jehan Geerts, 1580 (Folio Varia I, no. 1); M. Lobelius's Kruydtboeck, 1581.

5. Concerning this work, see Anvers, ville de Plantin et de Rubens, Catalogue de l'exposition ...Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, 1954, no. 301. There is a summary of the duke's entry into Antwerp, and also Damman's poem commemorating his entry into Ghent (Francisco Alençoniae duce, Gandavum ad capiendum Flandriae comitatum accercito, 1582).

6. Cf. also p. 398.

[p. 98]

By these and other means Plantin was able to find favour with the leading figures of the rebellion and, as printer to the States General, the city of Antwerp and the Duke of Anjou, he derived material benefits that probably did much to keep his press in operation.

It seems to the author that Plantin had a great personal respect for William of Orange, the champion of many ideas that were near to the royal printer's heart, particularly the concept of religious toleration. It cannot be mere coincidence that one of Plantin's poems ‘Faict et imprimé presents les tresillustres Prince et Princesse d'Orange’ is entitled Le seul divin est perdurable: toute autre chose est périssable and is drenched in the mysticism of the members of the Family of Love (and of Barrefelt, discussed later in this chapter). It also seems to the author that with the arrival of the Duke of Anjou the printer's French sentiments came to the surface.

Although Plantin tried to get into the good graces of the rebels, and thereby earned a certain amount of money, at no time, however, did he seek to obtain special privileges for himself by obsequious flattery. He was anxious to stay out of politics as far as possible, only engaging in activities with political implications when he had reason to hope that his business would benefit financially from them. Nevertheless Plantin followed in the footsteps of the rebels, even though it may not have been with conviction and enthusiasm, or a full personal commitment. Although he tried hard to avoid taking up a position against his old benefactor Philip II, inevitably circumstances often proved stronger than his good intentions. As printer to the States General and the Duke of Anjou, and to a lesser degree in his municipal capacity, Plantin was obliged to print many ordinances and pamphlets in which the king and his supporters were violently attacked.

Plantin managed to avoid publishing the most virulent anti-Spanish propaganda under his own name. Some of this appeared under the imprint of his son-in-law Frans Raphelengius,^1. who had begun openly to incline towards Calvinism and was therefore hopelessly compromised in Spanish eyes. Amongst such writings were the work of Bartolomeus de las Casas, Tyrannies et cruautéz des Espagnols, perpetrées és Indes Occidentales (1579), with a foreword that roused the inhabitants of the Netherlands to enthusiasm for the revolt against Spain ‘nation confite en tyrannie’ and the Afgheworpene

1. Rooses, Musée, pp. 146 and 202.

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Brieven vanden Cardinael van Granvelle ende vanden president Fonck, the French edition of which was entitled Diverses lettres interceptés du cardinal de Granvelle... (1580). This was a fierce pamphlet aimed at Plantin's former patron. Other pamphlets bore the names of various employees, of his wife's cousin, Guillaume Rivière, who worked as a printer in the Gulden Passer, of Cornelis de Bruyn, and of Nicolaas and Andreas Spore.^1. Other works probably appeared anonymously.

In these years of strife and tension Plantin also published works by eminent Calvinists. Most of these, however, were innocuous publications in themselves - such as the commentaries and editions of classical authors prepared by the Dutch statesman and humanist Janus Dousa, lord of Noordwijk, Langevelde and Kattendijk. Less innocent was De la vérité de la religion chrestienne, by the French Huguenot Philippe de Mornay, seigneur of Duplessis. Plantin brought out the first edition in 1581 and a second in 1582. This editio princeps by Plantin of the work of one of the foremost French Calvinist authors of the time can be explained by special circumstances. De Mornay wrote his work in Antwerp and Ghent when he was in the Netherlands as the ambassador of Henry of Bourbon (later Henry IV), and probably had personal contact with the printer.^2. As far as is known Plantin printed no other explicitly Calvinist texts. Although he may have deviated politically from his allegiance to Spain he remained generally loyal - outwardly at least - to the Catholic church.

The qualification is necessary for, as has already been seen, Plantin had been a member of Hendrik Niclaes's Family of Love during his early years in Antwerp. From a number of letters written to Guillaume Postel it appears that Plantin still belonged to this heretical sect in May and June 1567.^3. Over the following years there is a total black-out. It may be assumed that on the one hand Alva's reign of terror, and on the other Philip's patronage and the activities it entailed, alienated Plantin from his old friends of the Family of Love.

1. Rooses, Musée, pp. 166 and 202.

2. J. Guignard, ‘A propos des éditions françaises de Plantin’ in Gedenkboek der Plantin-dagen, 1956, pp. 338-339.

3. See pp. 21 sqq. concerning Plantin's religious opinions and his relations with Hendrik Niclaes and Barrefelt.

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The setbacks suffered by the Spanish regime gave Plantin the chance of establishing contact again. This he did, not with Hendrik Niclaes, who died in Cologne about 1580, but with the group that had broken away from the Family of Love in 1573. It was led and inspired by Hendrik Janssen who, as has been mentioned earlier, signed his letters with the name Barrefelt (after his birthplace Barneveld) and his books with the pseudonym Hiël (the Life of God). Plantin must have met this religious leader^1. in Holland during one of his journeys in the years 1579-80.^2. They maintained a close and intimate friendship that was only ended by Plantin's death.

Barrefelt's teaching did not differ in its essentials from that of Niclaes and similarly aspired to transcend the established churches, both Catholic and Protestant. In contrast with Niclaes, however, Barrefelt did not try to build up a hierarchical denomination of his own. His Catholic followers remained rather closer to Rome than did Niclaes's disciples. Plantin did not hesitate to put Barrefelt in touch with a man whose orthodoxy could hardly be called in question: Arias Montanus.^3. The Spanish theologian even adopted some of the Dutch preacher's theses and worked them into his own writings.^4.

Not all theologians had the great Spaniard's breadth of vision. Neither the Catholic clergy nor the Protestant theologians had much liking for these ‘zealots’ who dared to put themselves above churches and dogmas, and whereas Plantin ventured to publish both Catholic and Calvinist works under his own name, he deemed it prudent to bring out the products of his new friend and spiritual mentor anonymously. These included Het boek der Ghetuygenissen vanden verborghen Acker-schat (1581) [The book of the Witnesses of the Treasure hid in a Field], translated into French as Le livre des

1. Concerning Plantin's journeys in Holland before his move to Leiden, see M. Sabbe, ‘J. Lipsius en Chr. Plantin te Utrecht in 1581’ in De Gulden Passer, 5, 1927, pp. 10-12.

2. The first indication of their relationship is a letter from Barrefelt to Plantin, 17th November 1580 (Corr., VI, no. 893).

3. In September 1581, Plantin began to write to his Spanish friend about his renewed ‘devotion to Jesus Christ’ and about the possible publication of a work on this subject (cf. Corr., VI, nos. 947 and 950).

4. M. Sabbe, ‘Hoe stond Benedictus Arias Montanus tegenover de leeringen van Hendrik Jansen Barrefelt (Hiël)?’ in De Moretussen en hun kring, 1928. Also in French and Spanish translations. Cf. p. 21, n. 1.

[p. *27]

(26) After the abjuration of King Philip in 1581 Plantin dropped his Spanish title and used that of ‘Printer to the States General’ which had been bestowed on him in 1578.

[p. *28]

(27) Opposite: In 1582 Plantin was also appointed Ducal Printer, the duke being François, duc d'Anjou et d'Alençon, brother to the French king Henry III. After Anjou's abortive attempt to seize Antwerp by force (the French Fury, January 1583) Plantin immediately renounced this title.

[p. 101]

Tesmoignages du Thrésor caché au champ, the bible of the Barrefeltists and a worthy, and equally difficult-to-read counterpart of Hendrik Niclaes's Spigel der Gherechticheit; the Sendt-brieven wt yverighe herten, ende wt afvoorderinghe, schriftelijk aan de Lief-hebbers der Waerheyt, deur den wtvloedt vanden Gheest des eenwesighen Levens wtghegheven, also published in French as Epistres ou lettres missives escrittes par l'effluxion d'esprit de la vie uniforme. Another of Barrefelt's works, Imagines et figurae Bibliorum. Images et figures de la Bible. Beelden ende figuren wt den Bybel, an album of sixty pictures and an explanatory text in Latin, French and Dutch giving an allegorical interpretation of the most important events of the Old Testament, appeared with the false names of Jacobus Villanus as the author and of Renatus Christianus as the publisher probably in 1582.^1.

In this period, while seeking to chart a course to safety through the storm, Plantin committed many acts that could have been displeasing to both Catholics and Protestants, to the Spanish party as well as to the rebels. The printer took certain precautions. In 1555 he had already forbidden his workpeople, on pain of paying a fine, to take copies or proof-pages out of the printing-press or to tell outsiders what was going on there. In 1581 Plantin intensified these measures, raising the penalty for their infringement from the by no means inconsiderable sum of six stuivers to the enormous amount of one Flemish pound (= 6 fl., almost two weeks' wages) and made all his employees sign the relevant regulation that he had drafted specially.^2.

In 1581 Plantin was busy printing Barrefelt's works. Very probably he tried to ensure by these draconic means that they should be printed in complete secrecy. In this he was successful: not until three centuries after Plantin's death was his share in the publication of the Dutch zealot's works revealed by a study of his correspondence and accounts.^3.

1. See Rooses, Musée, pp. 52-54, on these works of Barrefelt printed by Plantin.

2. Arch. 116, folio 550.

3. That is to say Plantin was able to keep it a secret from the public at large, but a number of persons in Plantin's circle were naturally acquainted with the facts, and several of them wrote of these matters in their letters. For example Adrian Saravia, the Dutch preacher, stated in his letter of 20th October 1608 to the Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘Istius patriarchae [i.e. Barrefelt] librum quendam, cui titulus est “Thesaurus in agro absconditus”, domi suae impressum, teutonice et gallice, ab eo [i.e. Plantin] accepi: pretio an dono non memini’ [I have received from Plantin a certain book by the patriarch Barrefelt, entitled ‘The treasure hid in a field’, printed at his house, in Dutch and French: I do not remember whether it was for money or as a gift] (H. van Crombruggen, ‘Een brief van Adriaan Saravia over Lipsius en “Het Huis der Liefde”’ in De Gulden Passer, 28, 1950, p. 115). Plantin's share in the propagation of Barrefelt's writings was not forgotten in heterodox circles: G. Arnold in his Kirchen- und Ketser-Historie, Frankfurt, 1700, and especially F. Okely in A Faithful Narrative of God's gracious dealings with Hiël, Northampton, 1781, appear to have been well informed (cf. C. Clair, Plantin, pp. 143-144); so was P. Poiret in his Bibliotheca Mysticorum selecta, Amsterdam, 1708, a work from which J.H. Reitz borrowed in his Historie der Wiedergebohrene, 1717 (cf. M. Sabbe, ‘Hoe stond Benedictus Arias Montanus...’, p. 44, note 2). However, these works were not widely distributed, and Plantin's secret was kept from the general public - and from the authorities in the Netherlands.

[p. 102]

In the political sphere Plantin committed acts which were much more difficult to conceal, acts that were particularly likely to annoy the Spanish party. The outbreak of the rebellion in the Netherlands at the end of 1576 had naturally driven all thought of Plantin out of official minds in Madrid. After some degree of stability had been restored, however, Philip II remembered his prototypographus again. On 7th October 1577 de Çayas wrote to Diego Maldonado, secretary at the Spanish embassy in Paris, advising him that the king wanted to know what had happened to Plantin. Had events at Antwerp necessitated his departure?^1. The Spanish intelligence service could probably have provided the required particulars without much difficulty. In any case de Çayas could have immediately obtained the information he needed by asking Arias Montanus. Plantin had kept in touch with the theologian and other Spanish friends and had told them in detail of his adventures and of his desperate situation.

Plantin seems to have been just as diligent in avoiding contact with persons close to the king. In the end de Çayas took the initiative. In a letter of 13th June 1578 he complained in gently reproachful terms that he had had no news from Plantin; nevertheless he would be glad if he could be kept informed of the printer's affairs so that he, de Çayas, might help him as a brother if need arose. After a passing reference to the retirement of Arias Montanus to Pena de Aracena there followed a few equally innocent requests concerning the dispatching of books.^2.

The hint was plain enough. The same month Plantin wrote a lengthy reply from Paris, where he was then staying, giving no more than a brief

1. Suppl. Corr., p. 167, note 2.

2. Corr., V, no. 796.

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description of his experiences during the Spanish Fury, but going into considerable detail about the requested books and the violent anti-Spanish feeling in Paris. A few declarations of loyalty to Philip were interspersed, but these were so lukewarm that they would have brought a frown to the face of any attentive reader.^1.

Just at this time - on 23rd July 1578 - Juan de Vargas, the former member of the ‘Council of Blood’, sent in a report to Philip II from Paris which was likely to increase suspicion of Plantin. De Vargas reported that Plantin had arrived in Paris with a batch of anti-Spanish publications; he had been completely ‘corrupted’; he was said to be printing many heretical works in his officina, bestowing just as much care on them as on the printing of Holy Scripture.^2. De Vargas's report does not seem to have been taken very seriously in Madrid or - what is perhaps more probable - it was thought best to conceal whatever suspicion Plantin's attitude had aroused so as not to drive him openly and irrevocably into the arms of the rebels. It may also have been hoped to make use of Plantin as an intelligence agent.

In the following months de Çayas and Plantin exchanged quite a few letters. The printer gratefully made use of this opportunity to emphasize time after time, in lengthy notes and memoranda, the debts he had incurred in the king's service and to press for just recompense. Little was said about politics in those letters. Plantin may not have come up to expectation as an agent, but at least he had been effectively neutralized.

It is more than likely that a less accommodating attitude on the part of Madrid would in fact have caused Plantin to go over openly to the States General party. As it was he continued to waver and compromise, and when as printer to the States General he was obliged to print more and more anti-Spanish pamphlets, he began to excuse his conduct in a series of discursive letters, written from the middle of 1579 onwards to de Çayas and other Catholic or pro-Spanish connections. His constant theme was that what he did for the rebels he had been compelled to do in order to avoid ruin for himself and his press. He had to obey those who had come to power in the Netherlands. It is in these letters that the image continually recurs of the helmsman trying to bring his ship to safety through turbulent seas.^3.

1. Corr., V, no. 797.

2. Suppl. Corr., no. 139.

3. Cf. p. 92.

[p. 104]

The more Plantin felt himself to be compromised, the more frequent and fervent became his avowals of Catholic orthodoxy and of loyalty to the King of Spain. Although Plantin did become more and more compromised in the eyes of the world at large,^1. the letters he received from Madrid remained friendly and moderate in tone and no particular blame was imputed to him. Madrid was perhaps not altogether satisfied with his vacillation, but his position was accepted and he continued to be regarded as a supporter of the king.

On 17th April 1582 Granvelle wrote a letter from Madrid to de Tassis, dean of Antwerp Cathedral, who seems to have been away from the city at the time, probably at Louvain. The cardinal's letter shows the attitude of Spanish court circles towards Plantin: ‘Et au regard de ce que vous escripvez dudict Plantin, je me doubte que l'on vous aura mal informé et qu'il y aura de la calumpnie. Car en ce que je l'ay voulu employer contre les Calvinistes, je le tiens fort voluntiers et secret, ny à mon advis luy doibt estre imputé qu'il imprimat quelquesfois livretz et escriptz contre le Roy et en faveur des rebelles, pour estre contrainct à ce faire.’ Granvelle had in fact got hold of various letters that Plantin had sent to friends in which he affirmed his spiritual and temporal fealty to Catholicism and Spain. The prelate concluded with a sly and rather acid remark, probably intended for de Tassis himself:^2. ‘et n'est pas bien de croire légièrement à tous ceulx que, pour se montrer bons Catholicques, n'en donnent aultre preuve que de charger aucungs bien souvent à tort’ [and it is not good lightly to trust all those who, to show themselves good Catholics, offer no other evidence of this than to accuse others, very often wrongly].^3.

1. Pietro Bizari, an Italian who resided at Antwerp for some time, the author of a few books printed by Plantin and an agent in the service of England, had first-hand experience of this. In March 1583, when going by river from Antwerp to Cologne, his boat was intercepted by troops of the Duke of Parma. The Italian attempted to reason with the assailants - he was only a poor traveller, a scholar who had devoted his life to study and who was a proof-reader for Master Christophe Plantin. Whereupon one of the Walloon soldiers retorted angrily that Plantin had printed many books honouring the Prince of Orange and dispising His Majesty. The quick-thinking Italian changed his tactics and replied that in fact he was not really a proof-reader but had only corrected his own book, the Historia Rerum Persicarum, which he was now taking to Frankfurt and potential buyers. (C. Clair, ‘Plantiniana in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum and at the Public Records Office’ in De Gulden Passer, 37, 1959, p. 120.)

2. Who was no friend of Plantin. Cf. p. 66 above concerning his support of Plantin's rival Trognesius.

3. Suppl. Corr., no. 171.

[p. 105]

In these difficult years Plantin steered a skilful course amidst the perils of religious hatred and political passion. He can perhaps be reproached with having managed this rather too well, but it is easy - from a distance of four centuries - to accuse Plantin of having an ambiguous or, if it is preferred, too realistic attitude. In his religion the printer remained true all his life to his professed ideal: religious toleration, shrouded in a non-orthodox mysticism but within the Roman Catholic church. He stayed out of the political struggle as far as it was possible. Although he offered the rebels his services this was only to help keep his printing-press going. He did no more than fulfil the letter of his obligations. He cannot be accused of exaggerated zeal in the service of the rebels against Philip II, only perhaps of a marked personal sympathy for William of Orange which did not, however, find expression in political action.

As is so often the case in such instances, it is quite probable that Plantin did not at first believe that accepting the office of printer to the States General would force him into political partisanship and that he became more deeply involved than he had anticipated. But whatever Plantin may have thought or done, at no time did he act as a double agent or seek to further his own interests by slander or tale-bearing. In letters to friends and acquaintances in these years he always appears as a man of considerable moral stature.^1.

1. Cf. also pp. 123 sqq.

The Leiden interlude (1583-1585)^2.

On 3rd November 1582 a deed was drawn up before the aldermen of Leiden in which the Jonkvrouw Diewer van der Laen, widow of Jonker Henricus van Assendelft, attested that she had sold to Christophe Plantin for the sum of 3,000 fl. a ‘certain house and its grounds... in the Breestraat on the corner

2. L. Voet, ‘Het Plantijnse huis te Leiden’ in Verslag van de Algemene Vergadering van de leden van het Historische Genootschap gehouden te Utrecht op 31 october 1960. [Report of the General Meeting of the Historical Society held at Utrecht.] For Plantin's Leiden period see also P.A. Tiele, ‘Les premiers imprimeurs de l'université de Leide’ in Le Bibliophile belge, 1869; Rooses, Musée, pp. 233-238; P.C. Molhuysen, ‘De Academie-drukkers’ in Pallas Leidensis, 1925, pp. 309-313; H.J. Jesse, ‘Christoffel Plantijn te Leiden’ in De Gulden Passer, 12, 1934; A.J. Sormani, ‘Het Huis Plantijn te Leiden’ in De Gulden Passer, 22, 1944; and E. van Gulik & H.D.L. Vervliet, Een gedenksteen voor Plantijn en Van Raphelingen te Leiden, waarin opgenomen de Catalogus Librorum residuorum Tabernae Raphelengianae, Leiden, 1965.

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of the Vrouwensteeg with two small houses and their grounds situated behind that place’.^1. A few days before, in his letter of 29th October to his friend, the famous botanist Clusius, the printer had stated that he had bought the Assendelft house in Leiden ‘où ie suis appelé, mais ie ne scay encores quelles conditions on m'y présentera’.^2.

Plantin had been thinking of leaving Antwerp. He had contacted the academic authorities of the young university of Leiden (founded in 1575) who were looking for a suitable new official printer following the death in 1580 of Plantin's former Antwerp colleague Willem Silvius and the dismissal of his son Karel in 1582. It was concerning the conditions that the university were offering him that Plantin was still uncertain on 29th October 1582. The authorities seem to have taken a long time to come to a decision. The appointment ‘tot ordinaris drucker van de voors. universiteyt’ [as the printer of the aforesaid university] was not made until 14th May 1584, at a salary of 200 fl. a year.^3. The appointment was, however, considered to have taken effect as from 1st May 1583. Plantin must in fact have been certain by the end of 1582 that the university was going to accept him as its printer and grant him the benefits appertaining to the office.

Thus it was that in January 1583 Plantin was in Leiden, busy preparing for his move, and this must have spared him the spectacle of the ‘French Fury’ of 17th January 1583 in Antwerp. The actual move was made at the end of April 1583: on 31st April Martina Plantin wrote in the margin of the wages-book which she kept for her father: ‘le premier sameine apreis le partement de mon pere vers Leiden.’^4. That the printer must have been planning this in November of the previous year is shown by the fact that the deed of transfer drawn up then stipulated that he should take possession of the Assendelft house and the subsidiary properties in May 1583.

On 29th April 1583 Plantin's name was entered in the Album Civium Academicorum of Leiden University, and he was assumed to have taken office as academic printer on 1st May. He had not, however, severed all

1. Suppl. Corr., no. 252.

2. Suppl. Corr., no. 177.

3. P.C. Molhuysen, Bronnen tot de geschiedenis der Leidsche Universiteit, I, pp. 40 and 119. Reprinted in Suppl. Corr., no. 254.

4. Arch. 788, folio 14.

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connections with Antwerp. While Plantin was establishing himself in Leiden with three presses, his two sons-in-law kept the Antwerp officina going. Jan Moretus managed the bookshop, Frans Raphelengius the actual press, where ten presses were still in operation: the ‘Antwerpsche Druckerije’ remained the parent house, at least in the beginning. This naturally raises the question of why Plantin left his beloved Antwerp. Why, after refusing the offers of the King of France and the Duke of Savoy, had he suddenly moved house and set up a branch in Holland which might in course of time become the main, or even the only Officina Plantiniana?

Very few documents concerning Plantin's activities in Leiden have been preserved. It has been asserted that after his reconciliation with Philip II the printer destroyed his correspondence because it was too compromising. But his letters to Catholic personages and all his accounts for the period have also disappeared. The truth is probably quite simple: Plantin must have left the relevant records behind at Leiden where they were subsequently lost. As a result there are few details of Plantin's Leiden period available. The reasons which the printer cited in explanation of his move to Holland are mostly to be found in letters written to Catholics and loyalists after his return to Antwerp, and in these the emphasis is shifted according to the nature of the person addressed. Only one document from this period, the Relation simple et véritable d'aulcuns griefz of 31st December 1583, offers any real statement of his objects and reasons - fortunately it is a very detailed one. Overwhelmed by financial cares and undermined by ill health, Plantin had decided to withdraw from business for a while in order to recuperate his strength and at the same time to observe from a distance how his sons-in-law acquitted themselves without his support. Therefore he had gone to Holland, staying with one of his ‘best and most intimate friends’ (‘chez ung de mes meilleurs et familiers amis’). This friend was in fact Justus Lipsius, the great humanist, who had been teaching at the university of Leiden since 1578. Plantin's intention had been to stay just a few months in Leiden incognito (‘d'y demeurer quelques mois comme incogneu’). The plan misfired, however: Plantin was immediately recognized and found himself urged from all quarters to remain in Leiden. The most tempting inducements were held out to him until at last he yielded.^1.

1. Corr., VII, no. 1014, pp. 132-133.

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These two main themes, the ‘friend’ who had invited him to Leiden (mention of his name was studiously avoided in most instances as Justus Lipsius was then persona non grata with the Spanish authorities)^1. and the change of air ordered by the doctors, are encountered with all kinds of variations in the letters Plantin wrote after his return. In these later letters, however, a further reason was given. Plantin emphasized repeatedly that the Leiden officina had saved him and his family from hunger and distress when the parent house had been all but closed down during the siege of Antwerp by Farnese.^2. This explanation was of course given after the event, although by the end of 1582 a siege of Antwerp was already a foreseeable contingency. The small town of Lier had fallen to the Spanish on 2nd August 1582: Farnese was within a few miles of Antwerp and it did not look as if Orange and the States General would be able to throw him back. Instead of strengthening the rebels, the arrival of the Duke of Anjou with a French army only increased the confusion. The Calvinists disliked this Catholic prince, while the Catholics suspected his ambition; not without reason, as the ‘French Fury’ of January 1583 was soon to show.

Events had brought Antwerp into the battle-zone, and Plantin's removal to Leiden must be seen in that light. Faced with the menacing Spanish advance and uncertain as to what lay ahead for Antwerp, the printer wanted to set up a reserve press elsewhere which could take over the function of the parent house either temporarily or permanently when the fighting spread to the Brabantine port. The presence of Justus Lipsius in Leiden and this scholar's insistence, and the opportunities which were offered Plantin there undoubtedly made the printer choose the Dutch university town. The desire to escape from the tense atmosphere of Antwerp to a more peaceful place must have driven him to establish and manage the new officina in Leiden in person.

While the battle was drawing closer to Antwerp, culminating in the siege that began in June 1584, and while work at the Officina Plantiniana was

1. Only in a letter to Sambucus (18th May 1583: Suppl. Corr., no. 178) Plantin mentions explicitly the aid and council of Lipsius (‘...Leidam me contulerim... non sine consilio et opera opeque nostri Lipsii...’).

2. See for example the letters to Frans Lucas, 3rd December 1585 (Corr., VII, no. 1049) and to de Çayas, 21st December 1585 (Corr., VII, no. 1056).

[p. *29]

(28) Opposite: When the tide turned and the Spanish armies of the Duke of Parma besieged Antwerp, Jan Moretus and Frans Raphelengius, who managed the Antwerp business during Plantin's absence in Leiden, took the precaution of specifying, on decrees and other matter they printed for the rebel authorities, that publication was by ‘Government order’.

[p. *30]

(29) Some of the books published by Plantin in the troubled years 1577-85 - those that must have been very compromising in Spanish eyes - do not bear his own name. Instead he issued them under the name of his son-in-law Frans Raphelengius, as is the case with Las Casas's book on the cruelties of the Spanish conquistadores in the New World, or even under those of his journeymen Guillaume Rivière, Cornelis de Bruyn, and Nicolaas and Andreas Spore.

[p. 109]

gradually slowing down,^1. the printer was building up his Leiden press into quite a flourishing concern. The first book he printed there was the illustrated history of the Counts of Holland by Adriaan Barlandus.^2. Over thirty other works followed in the course of the two years that Plantin was active in Leiden, principally classical authors, the writings of Justus Lipsius, treatises by Simon Stevin and Petrus Ramus, and some nautical atlases.^3.

The press in the Assendelft house in the Breestraat was some distance from the university. Although only just settled in Leiden, Plantin managed to obtain permission on 25th May 1583 to ‘have a shop built of stone or of wood at his own cost in the precinct of the University in the gateway at the left-hand side of the façade of the aforesaid University, in order to practise the trade of bookselling there’.^4. He seems also to have augmented his income by giving board and lodging to students.^5.

Leiden and its university had a bad name among the Catholics. They were looked upon - and feared - as one of the chief breeding grounds of Calvinism. Plantin's departure for this ‘hotbed of heresy’ therefore caused a considerable stir among his Roman Catholic friends. Arias Montanus spared Plantin both reproaches and advice and simply promised that he would continue to comfort his old friend with his letters.^6. On the other

1. Ten presses and thirty-five workmen in January 1583; six presses, twenty-six workmen in January 1584; six presses, eighteen workmen in January 1585; and one press, four workmen in June 1585.

2. The book was dedicated to the States of Holland, 13th September 1583 (the text is in Corr., VII, no. 1009). In his dedication Plantin very cleverly stressed the great expense he had incurred in coming to Leiden and setting up his press. The authorities took the hint: the States of Holland gave him a grant of 100 fl., while the university senate added another 200 fl. In some copies of the book there must also have been a dedication to the States of the Province of Utrecht, which had contributed 60 fl. Cf. Tiele, ‘Les premiers imprimeurs de l'université de Leide’, p. 116.

3. On 11th January 1585 Plantin offered the Leiden magistrate a copy of each work which he had printed in the town up to that date. The list of titles of these works, thirty in all, has been preserved and is reproduced in Tiele, op. cit., pp. 117-118.

4. Suppl. Corr., no. 253.

5. According to P.C. Molhuysen, Bronnen tot de geschiedenis der Leidsche Universiteit, I, p. 49, n. 1, Plantin's name occurs in the annual census of persons ‘qui familiam alunt’ [who feed a family] or ‘huys-houders’ [who keep a boarding-house]. Cf. also P.A.M. Geurts, ‘Mr. Willem van Assendelft, kanunnik-schoolmeester te Leiden (1579-1591) en het “Privilegium fori” der universiteit’ in Archief voor de geschiedenis van de Katholieke Kerk in Nederland, 6, 1964, pp. 9-10.

6. Letter of 22nd September 1583 (Corr., VII, no. 1011).

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hand Livinus Torrentius, the vicar-general of Liège referred to earlier, viewed the matter far less serenely and took Plantin severely to task in his letter of 10th October 1583. He went so far as to proffer an alluring bait - the publication of the Vatican Library treasures - in an attempt to direct his friend from iniquitous Leiden to the city of the Popes.^1. Yet in letters to friends and acquaintances the vicar-general was just as vehement in the printer's defence:^2. Plantin had emphatically assured him that he would remain Catholic and publish only neutral scientific works in heretical Leiden, and Torrentius believed his friend.

Plantin did not betray this confidence. In fact during the period 1583 to 1585 his attitude was much less ambiguous than in the preceding seven years. He may have published a few more of Barrefelt's writings, but for the rest he held to a course of strict neutrality in religion and politics. The Antwerp officina provided the only exceptions. Plantin allowed some more Catholic liturgical books to be published there at a time when the Calvinists were in power and his sons-in-law printed some municipal ordinances with an anti-Spanish tinge, taking care, however, to put on the title-pages the words ‘Deur bevel vande overheijt’ [By command of the authorities].

At Leiden itself Plantin observed the most stringent neutrality. In his later correspondence he repeatedly stressed that he had only established himself in Leiden on the express assurance that he would be allowed to stay out of political and religious controversy. He was equally emphatic that the Leiden authorities had at no time brought pressure to bear on him.

Nevertheless Plantin did stray from the path of neutrality on one occasion in Leiden, and in a manner that must have been greatly displeasing to Philip II. In 1585 the Explanatio veri ac legitimi juris quo serenissimus Lusitaniae rex Antonius ejus nominis primus nititur ad bellum Philippi regi Castellae, pro regni recuperatione inferendum was published by the Leiden officina together with its Dutch, French and English translations. This text was a defence of the claim of Dom Antonio, natural son of the late Infante Dom Luis, to the Portuguese throne. He had occupied that throne for a brief moment in 1580 but had been driven out by the troops of Philip II, who seized Portugal in his

1. Corr., VII, no. 1012.

2. For example the letter to Gerardus Vossius, or Voss, 17th September 1583 (Suppl. Corr., no. 182).

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wife's name. The Portuguese pretender was in Holland to seek aid in his struggle with the Spanish monarch. In Spanish eyes the publication of the Explanatio was an overt act of high treason.^1.

It is hardly surprising that Plantin, after his return to Antwerp, felt himself constrained to justify his conduct in this matter repeatedly and at great length.^2. This he did with a vehemence and indignation that seem unfeigned this time. Approached by a representative of Dom Antonio to print the pretender's apology, Plantin had flatly refused. Behind his back the Portuguese had then turned to the highest authority in the province, the States of Holland, and in due course Plantin had been expressly commanded to put his printing-press at the disposal of Dom Antonio. The printer explained in detail the stratagem he had employed to proclaim his innocence: whereas all the works he had printed of his own free will bore the words ‘ex officina’, in this case he had used the phrase ‘in officina’ to show that such publications ‘sont bien faicts en madicte imprimerie mais contre ma volonté’.

Plantin was so incensed by this abuse of their powers by the Dutch States that he immediately made preparations for leaving Leiden. At least this is what he asserted in letters to his Spanish friends after his return to Antwerp. There can be no doubt that the printer was forced against his will to publish Dom Antonio's Explanatio: the few guilders that this work brought in were not worth the risk of provoking the Spanish who at that moment had things in their favour in the south and were on the point of entering Antwerp. But to believe that Plantin turned his back on Leiden out of indignation at the conduct of the Dutch authorities is another matter altogether.^3. There was another consideration that weighed more heavily: the surrender of Antwerp to the armies of Philip II was imminent.^4.

1. Cf. Rooses, Musée, pp. 236-237; Clair, Plantin, pp. 156-157.

2. Cf. for example the letters to de Çayas, 21st December 1585 (Corr., VII, no. 1056), and to Charles de Tisnacq, Captain of the Guard of Philip II, 4th July 1587 (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1278).

3. In the years 1582 and 1583 the typographer printed several other proclamations of Dom Antonio without formulating any protest - but these pamphlets were published anonymously. What Plantin bothered mostly in the case of the Explanatio was the fact that he had to put his name on it.

4. There were undoubtedly additional considerations which crystallized round this main motive. There was, for example, the arrival of the Earl of Leicester and his English troops - which promised to give the war a new virulence - and this must have strengthened Plantin's resolve and hastened his departure. There are hints of this in a few letters, including that written early in November 1585 to Arias Montanus (Corr., VII, no. 1045: ‘sub finem Julii videns ego tractari cum Anglis de muandis regionibus in continuatione belli longum et periculosum iter suscipere non sum veritus...’) and in a letter to Charles de Tisnacq, 8th May 1586 (Corr., VII, no. 1100).

[p. 112]

On 21st August 1585 Jan Moretus was ordered by the city magistrate to ‘print and publish abroad the treaty of reconciliation concluded between His Highness the Duke of Parma and this city, both in the French and the Brabant tongues’.^1. Antwerp was capitulating after a long and heroic resistance. On 27th August the victorious Parma entered the city in triumph.

The surrender had been in the offing for several months, and even before it had become a fact Plantin had begun to make ready for his return. The indifference with which he closed down the business he had so carefully built up in the university town and his precipitate departure show clearly that Plantin's heart had never been in Leiden. The officina there was only an expedient to keep himself solvent for as long as his establishment in Antwerp was threatened. As soon as that threat seemed to have passed, Plantin promptly forsook Leiden and hastened back to Antwerp.^2.

The return journey was not accomplished without difficulty. The road to Antwerp had been blocked by the armies of both sides and so Plantin was obliged to take a circuitous route. Early in August he made his way via Amsterdam to Enkhuizen, where he embarked in a ship bound for Hamburg. In the mouth of the Elbe, however, this vessel was driven back into the open sea by a roaring north-easterly gale. A second attempt the following day was no more successful: at the same place in the estuary the voyagers were once again struck by a storm. For four days they wallowed helplessly in the grip of the raging elements, while around them they saw several other ships go down. But at last Hamburg was reached safely.

The long journey over land to Frankfurt was slow but uneventful and the city was reached in time for the Book Fair. Plantin intended to stay until

1. Corr., VII, no. 1037. The French edition was in fact published ‘De l'imprimerie de Christophe Plantin’. The Brabant (Flemish) version was printed without the name of the printer, but it came certainly from the Plantin press. Another Flemish version was supplied by an Antwerp colleague, Daniel Vervliet.

2. Leaving his wife behind. Jeanne Rivière, who had accompanied her husband to Leiden, was not able to return to Antwerp until May 1586. See the letter to Arias Montanus, 22nd May 1586 (Corr., VII, no. 1103).

[p. 113]

the end of the fair so as to be able to complete all his business there, but his friend Luis Perez sent him word from Cologne that Antwerp had surrendered. The Spanish merchant asked Plantin to return with him to the liberated city. Joyfully Plantin left the Frankfurt Fair and hurried to Cologne, only to find on arrival that there were no waggons available and - what was even more important - no escorts. A military escort was essential for the journey through the Southern Netherlands, made unsafe by deserters and brigands. The impatient Plantin and Perez had to await the end of the fair and the arrival in Cologne of the crowd of merchants on their way home to the Netherlands. In a convoy of thirty waggons escorted by heavily armed soldiers, they travelled by way of Liège (where Livinus Torrentius welcomed the friends most cordially), Louvain, Brussels (where Plantin took time off to call on various ‘patroni’; these were probably highly placed officials), and so home to Antwerp.^1.

In the second half of October 1585 Plantin was back in his Gulden Passer in the Vrijdagmarkt.^2.

The Leiden episode was over.

1. Plantin wrote long accounts of this memorable journey in letters to friends and patrons. Examples are the letter of early November 1585 to Arias Montanus (Corr., VII, no. 1045) and that of 28th November 1585 to de Çayas (Corr., VII, no. 1047).

2. Plantin's earliest (extant) letter from Antwerp, addressed to Torrentius, is dated 28th October 1585 (Corr., VII, no. 1041).

‘From our once flourishing press’ (1585-1589)^3.

Plantin was safely back in an Antwerp that was once more obedient to the Spanish king. He does not seem to have worried unduly about how he would be received. His Spanish and pro-Spanish friends and his patrons at the court of Madrid had long since forgiven him for his vacillating attitude in the years 1576 to 1583 and had accepted his reasons for his exodus to the hotbed of Calvinism in the north. Even de Çayas, the royal secretary, had continued writing to him in his Dutch abode, and from this centre of resistance to Philip II, Plantin kept up his tedious refrain of complaint about the heavy losses he had suffered working for his sovereign and continued to press for just remuneration. When, shortly after his return to Antwerp,

3. Rooses, Musée, pp. 241 sqq.; Clair, Plantin, pp. 161-178.

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Plantin was summoned to the presence of Philip's regent, Alexander Farnese, it was not to vindicate his conduct but to draft a detailed report of his financial dealings with the king and a statement of what the royal exchequer owed him.^1.

Plantin was able to set to work again without much trouble. The man who had sung the praises of William of Orange found himself protected once more by Philip's high officers of state; the printer to the Duke of Anjou and the States General was invited to take lunch with the new governor of Antwerp, Frédéric Perrenot, lord of Champagney and younger brother of Cardinal Granvelle.^2. For a time malicious rumours were put about concerning Plantin's religious attitude at Leiden, rumours that could have done him serious harm. He was accused of having taken part in Calvinist ceremonies. Plantin was able to nip this dangerous whispering campaign in the bud, however, for an old friend, Walter van der Stegen, a canon of Antwerp Cathedral and at that time the representative of the Inquisitor in the Netherlands, had already written him a testimonial to his Catholic orthodoxy, couched in the warmest terms, on 19th October 1585.^3.

Plantin's rivals later circulated more of such rumours on a number of occasions, even spreading them at the court of Madrid, but the printer's friends always came vociferously to his defence: Walter van der Stegen, Livinus Torrentius (who became Bishop of Antwerp in 1586), Arias Montanus, de Çayas, Granvelle, and others smothered these campaigns before they could become virulent.^4. Not for one moment after his return to Antwerp did Plantin have cause to feel uneasy on account of his past political or religious conduct. Calmly, and as if it were the obvious thing to do, he started using the title of royal printer again, styling himself ‘Drucker der Conincklijcke Maiesteijt’ and ‘Imprimeur du Roy’. At the same time the new magistrate of Antwerp appointed by the Spanish authorities readily con-

1. Letters to de Çayas, 1st December 1585 (Corr., VII, no. 1048) and Michel Baius, 5th December 1585 (Corr., VII, no. 1051).

2. Letter to Stephanus Winandus Pighius, 27th July 1586 (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1120).

3. Cf. Plantin's letter of 28th October 1585 to Torrentius (see p. 113, n. 2) and Van der Stegen's letter of 10th June 1587 to Arias Montanus (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1265).

4. Cf. for example the letter of 1st February 1586 from Arias Montanus (Corr., VII, no. 1071), to Arias Montanus, 3rd-7th June 1587 (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1263), and Van der Stegen's letter of 10th June 1587 to Arias Montanus (see previous note).

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firmed Plantin in his position as city printer on 1st October 1586 with the same conditions as had been granted by the rebel corporation in 1579.^1.

Although the past gave Plantin no cause for anxiety, the present and the future held an abundance of trouble. One problem which was solved quickly and satisfactorily was that of the Leiden press. This had been closed on Plantin's departure, but the equipment and the stocks of books and paper left behind there in the care of his wife represented a by no means inconsiderable capital asset, quite apart from the Assendelft property and the smaller premises that had been acquired later. There was a very real danger that the Dutch authorities would seize Plantin's Leiden property as a reprisal for his ‘defection to the enemy’. Plantin's competitors certainly approached the government of Holland with this possibility in mind, presumably in the hope of taking over the press on very favourable terms.^2.

Plantin countered this move swiftly and adroitly. His scholarly son-in-law Frans Raphelengius, the specialist in Oriental languages who for many years had been his principal proof-reader and had managed the Antwerp press while his father-in-law was in Leiden, had been converted to Calvinism in the period 1579-85. He had also had some of the children baptized in the new faith.^3. This must have led to friction and tension within the family, for his wife Margareta and two of their children remained loyal to the old religion. Nevertheless the family ties remained unbroken. After the surrender of Antwerp it would have been possible for Raphelengius to have sought reconciliation with the Spanish king and the Catholic church, but even if he had done this he would still have remained rather under a cloud. On the other hand his convictions would ensure him a welcome in the North.

For want of facts it cannot be said what exactly went on behind the scenes or how far Justus Lipsius was once more involved in Plantinian affairs, but early in 1586 Raphelengius and his family appeared in Leiden.^4. On

1. Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1146. In January 1586 Plantin had pressed the magistrate for payment of the two years' arrears which the city owed him (Corr., VII, no. 1070).

2. Cf. the letters to Arias Montanus, 23rd December 1586 (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1179, p. 103), to de Çayas, 31st January 1587 (ibid., no. 1204, p. 142), and to Andreas Schottus, 26th August 1587 (ibid., no. 1295, p. 283).

3. It is more likely that Frans Raphelengius was converted to the Calvinist faith in Antwerp than, as is usually assumed, in Leiden. Cf. L. Voet, ‘Het Plantijnse huis te Leiden’, p. 14, note 3.

4. On 17th January 1586 Frédéric Perrenot, Seigneur of Champagney and Governor of Antwerp, endorsed a passport to Holland for ‘Frans Raphelengius, his wife, two children, and a servant’. Cf. C. Clair, ‘Plantiniana in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum and at the Public Records Office’ in De Gulden Passer, 37, 1959, p. 114.

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3rd March 1586 he succeeded his father-in-law as university printer with the same salary of 200 fl. a year. In the course of that same year he began to deputize for the professor of Hebrew, Johannes Drusius, who had been appointed to the Academy at Franeker, and in 1587 he himself was promoted to professor.^1.

On 26th November 1585 Plantin sold the printing-press, houses and all his other possessions in Leiden to his son-in-law.^2. This was a sale in name only: when Plantin died in 1589 all this property was included in his estate. But by this fictitious sale the appearance of legality was preserved, the danger of confiscation was averted and the Leiden officina could operate again. According to what Plantin later declared - not without a certain pride - the Dutch authorities were anxious to keep the name of Plantin associated with the Leiden press. This being so Frans Raphelengius was able to fix his own terms, the same terms that Plantin had asked for and obtained, namely that he should only be required to print academic works, not books on controversial religious or political topics.

How far this statement was correct and to what extent it was Plantin who in fact dictated his son-in-law's demands and controlled the business from Antwerp cannot be ascertained. What is ascertainable is that from 1586 Plantin's former press at Leiden was known as the Officina Plantiniana apud Franciscum Raphelengium and that only academic works were printed there.

It was at Antwerp itself that difficulties were piling up. Plantin's joy at being home again was naturally mingled with the hope that the tide would soon turn in economic affairs too and business prosper once more. However, the good old days were not to return. Antwerp remained a front-line town. The Scheldt was still blockaded and deserters, marauders, bandits, and raiding parties from the army of the States General operated under the very walls of the towns, crippling trade. Paper was brought in slowly and with difficulty, doubling and trebling in price. On the other hand, books

1. Concerning Raphelengius, see pp. 150-151.

2. Rooses, Musée, p. 238.

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(30) Opposite: After having been confined to his bed for twenty days Plantin, with unsteady hand, wrote recommending his son-in-law Jan Moretus to Justus Lipsius (first seven lines on document). Jan Moretus sent the document to Lipsius on 19th June 1589 after adding some words of explanation in Latin (three lines and signature on lower part of document). When Jan Woverius found the letter among Lipsius's papers he gave it to Balthasar I Moretus on 30th April 1621, after adding the note at the bottom.

[p. *32]

(31) Opposite: The siege of Antwerp by Parma's troops (1584-85). Etching by Frans Hogenberg. Parma did not try to take the city by direct assault but cut it off from the allies in Zealand and proceeded to starve it into submission. After a lengthy siege the defenders of the city had to capitulate.

[p. 117]

could only be exported under the same adverse conditions. Consignments were an unconscionable time on the road and packages regularly went astray. In March 1586 Jan Dresseler, Plantin's agent, was kidnapped between Brussels and Namur on his way to the Frankfurt Fair and was not released until a ransom had been paid.^1. Matters were not improved when fighting broke out in France in 1587. The ‘War of the three Henrys’, and the struggle between Henry of Bourbon and the League that followed it, ruined one of Plantin's principal outlets and made communications with Spain worse than before.

The printer's joy and hope were snuffed out. The future was bleak and without prospect; the Plantinian press would never again flourish as the greatest of its kind in the world, but would be brought to stagnation by straitened circumstances. The blow came doubly hard after the surge of optimism that the capture of Antwerp by the King's troops had occasioned. It fell on a weary, aged, and exhausted man. From this time on many of Plantin's letters ended with the melancholy and bitter words ‘From our once flourishing press’.^2.

Plantin had practically given up his publishing activities in 1576. By force of circumstance he was once again a printer working to order, as in his difficult early years. This must have been unspeakably galling to the ambitious

1. Cf. letters to de Çayas, 21st March 1586 (Corr., VII, no. 1081) and to Arias Montanus, 1st April 1586 (Corr., VII, no. 1086).

2. With all kinds of variations in French and Latin: ‘D'Anvers, en nostre jadis florissante et ores flaitrissante Imprimerie’ [from Antwerp, in our once flourishing and now fading press]; ‘de nostre caducque Imprimerie’ [from our decaying press]; ‘de nostre imprimerie (jadis riches et ores fort pauvre)’ [from our press - once rich and now very poor]; ‘de nostre imprimerie riche de presses et de characteres mais pauvres pour les employer autrement qu'au plus grand profict d'autruy que de moymesmes’ [from our printing office, rich in presses and founts, but too poor to employ them except to the great profit of others]; and so on. Cf. for example Corr., VII, nos. 1097, 1100, 1109, and 1111; Corr., VIII-IX, nos. 1127, 1150, 1241, 1287, 1305, 1309, 1322, 1336, 1341, 1343, and 1396. Most of these letters were addressed to influential patrons who were in a position to help Plantin in his need (Arias Montanus and de Çayas were exceptions to this general rule: Plantin omitted such expressions in the numerous letters he exchanged with them) or were intended for authors or clients whose unreasonable demands or requests needed moderating. Nevertheless Plantin's letters to Ditlevius Silvius, 9th August 1586 (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1127) and to Ferdinand Ximenes, 8th August 1587 (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1287) really seem to have been cries from the heart. Cf. L. Voet, ‘The personality of Plantin’ in Gedenkboek der Plantin-dagen, 1956, p. 206, note 1.

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typographer, but in the years 1576 to 1585, when he was still sustained by the hope of better times, this was only very occasionally reflected in his letters. Now hope failed him: Plantin, the greatest printer of his age, was to end his days as the ‘hireling’ of more fortunate competitors.

On 28th November 1585 he unburdened his soul in a letter to de Çayas:^1. ‘For to confess the truth, for a number of years the expenses I have borne and the payments of interest I have made have reduced me to such need and poverty that my labours, with only the reputation of my name have supported and fed me for the sole benefit of several booksellers in Paris, Lyons, Cologne, and elsewhere, which, for the help of my printing-press, my name, and my toil, grant me money and paper for the expenses of the books that I print, which they take back and sell to their own private profit: there remaining for me only the rewards of my work as a hireling, some small numbers of copies for display, and the fame which by the grace of God I have maintained and preserved with great difficulty to the present day to the honour of His Majesty and the Christian commonwealth.’^2. From that time on the theme of the ‘hireling’ and the ‘slave’ occurred with monotonous regularity in Plantin's letters.^3.

Nevertheless his printer's mark still bore the motto Labore et Constantia and Plantin struggled grimly on. The four men and one press that he found working in the Gulden Passer in October 1585 were gradually increased

1. Corr., VII, no. 1047.

2. Original French text: ‘Car pour confesser la vérité il y a desja quelque nombre d'années que je suis par tant de fraiz faicts et intérests payés reduict à telle nécessité et pauvreté que mes travaux avec la seule réputation de mon nom m'entretiennent et nourrissent simplement au seul profict de quelques libraires de Paris, de Lyon, de Cologne et d'autres lieux, lesquels s'aidants de mon Imprimerie, de mon nom et de mes labeurs me baillent argent et papiers pour fournir aux despends des livres que j'imprime, lesquels ils retirent à soy et les vendent à leur seul et particulier profict: sans qu'il m'en demeure que le simple loyer du labeur comme mercenaire, quelque petit nombre d'exemplaires pour monstre et le renom que par la grace de Dieu fort difficilement j'ay entretenu jusques à présent et conservé à l'honneur de sa Majesté et de la république chrestienne.’

3. Cf. for example letters to the Bishop of Tournai, 2nd January 1586 (Corr., VII, no. 1063), to F. Bonhomius, 31st January 1586 (ibid., no. 1069), Arias Montanus, 14th May 1586 (ibid., no. 1101), de Çayas, 14th May 1586 (ibid., no. 1102), F. Lucas, 13th June 1586 (ibid., no. 1112), H. Gravius, 28th June 1586 (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1115), N. Oudartius, 18th July 1586 (ibid., no. 1119), de Çayas, 1st August 1586 (ibid., no. 1125), F. Lucas, 20th-26th September 1586 (ibid., no. 1141), and de Çayas, 31st January 1587 (ibid., no. 1204).

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again.^1. He succeeded in keeping up the impressive rate of production of forty volumes a year, helped by his French and German business contacts and the money advanced by his authors; in a few cases he was even able to shoulder the cost of production himself. In addition he published a number of works that could bear comparison with the best that he had produced: a Spanish edition, published at his own risk, of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Ortelius; a new Italian edition of L. Guicciardini's Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi; a new edition of Kiliaan's dictionary; a number of liturgical books; Cardinal Baronius's Martyrologium Romanum, which appeared in 1589 and was the last monumental work that Plantin produced; and the first part of the prelate's magnum opus, the famous Annales Ecclesiastici.

Plantin is also said to have established a branch in Salamanca in this period.^2. It was on a modest scale and set up more by chance than by design, and not by Plantin but by his son-in-law Jan Moretus. Jan Poelman, son of Plantin's long-time friend Theodoor, who had served the printer for about fourteen years in his bookshop, wished himself to establish in Spain as a bookseller.^3. On 1st August 1586 he signed an agreement with Jan Moretus concerning the sale of Plantinian editions in the Peninsula.^4. The only financial contribution that Moretus made towards the venture was the transfer of the sum of 4,313 fl. that Poelman owed him for a previous transaction. Like Plantin himself, this enterprising young man from Antwerp had to contend with a chronic shortage of capital which severely restricted his activities, while at the same time the difficult communications between the Low Countries and Spain were hardly conducive to a flourishing trade.^5.

1. Three presses and 11 men in January 1586; 6 presses, 18 men in January 1587; 6 presses, 22 men in January 1588; but 4 presses, 7 men in January 1589.

2. Concerning this ‘branch’ see Rooses, Musée, p. 172. More details are also given in Vol. II.

3. Or rather establish himself again in Spain: in a letter of 17th December 1581 (Corr., VII, no. 965) Plantin had recommended his former servant to Francisco Sanchez de las Brozas (Sanctius Brocensis), professor at the University of Salamanca, stating that Jan Poelman had gone into partnership with a Spanish merchant and wished to set up a bookshop in Spain. From the contract with Jan Moretus it is clear that before 1585 Poelman actually had had a bookshop in Salamanca.

4. Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1123.

5. Cf. the correspondence conducted between Poelman and Plantin or Jan Moretus: Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1135 (13th September 1586), no. 1251 (3rd May 1587), no. 1285 (22nd July 1587), no. 1292 (22nd August 1587), no. 1299 (3rd-5th September 1587), no. 1353 (6th March 1588), and no. 1493 (19th August 1589). Deliveries to Poelman up to 2nd May 1587 were worth 4,458 fl. 15½ st. (Arch. 19, folio 162). Cf. also p. 200.

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The Salamanca branch did not play a very important part in the affairs of the Gulden Passer.

Living up to his motto, Plantin fought desperately to maintain his position as a printer and pay off his debts. He borrowed the large sum of 6,000 fl. at Frankfurt, depositing the greater part of his punches and matrices as security.^1. He continued to worry Philip II for remuneration for the debts he had incurred in the royal service. At the beginning of 1589, after countless petitions and investigations by government commissioners and special committees, Plantin was able to enjoy the bitter-sweet consolation of a lump sum of 1,000 fl. - an ‘alms’ as he himself called it.^2.

The end, however, was approaching. For many years Plantin had been afflicted with calculus and colics. The pains grew worse with advancing age, and the economic depression must have undermined both his moral and physical powers of resistance. From 1586 he was a mere shadow of what he once had been. Jan Moretus had to take on an ever-increasing share of the management of the business. Precautions were taken: Moretus obtained the necessary royal patent on 27th February 1587 so that he could immediately assume responsibility for the officina if Plantin were to die suddenly.^3.

Until this time Plantin had put his year of birth at about 1520; in 1583 he was still giving his age as 63. Five years later, in 1588, he suddenly made himself 11 years older.^4. If there is any truth in the saying that a man is as old as he feels then this was a significant symptom.

Death was drawing swiftly near. On 28th May 1589, after returning from mass, the printer had to go to bed. He was not to leave it again. The diagnosis of his doctors has been preserved, but it leaves much to be desired where clarity is concerned: ‘le mal estoit advenu par ung coacervation de

1. Letters to de Çayas, 18th February 1588 (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1350) and 8th March 1588 (ibid., no. 1354).

2. See for example Corr., VII, nos. 1052, 1054, 1055, 1086, 1087, 1093, 1095, 1109, 1110; Corr., VIII-IX, nos. 1204, 1205, 1226, 1235, 1254, 1279, 1283, 1350, 1354, 1360, 1364, 1373, 1376, 1380, 1397, 1424, 1439, 1445, and 1447. Cf. Rooses, Musée, pp. 242-243.

3. Arch. 1183, no. 2. Cf. Rooses, Musée, p. 244. He had already been accepted as a master printer by the Guild of St. Luke on 6th August 1586 (P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De liggeren... der Antwerpsche Sint-Lucasgilde, I, p. 295).

4. Cf. pp. 4-5.

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flegmes au costé droict par dedans le corps lesquels ayant engendré la quelque apostume luy ont donné de trèsgrandes douleurs’.^1. Eight days later Plantin was contending with a high fever. On 19th June, in a barely legible hand, he wrote his last words, commending his loyal son-in-law Jan Moretus to Justus Lipsius and other good friends.^2. On 23rd June Livinus Torrentius informed a friend that this time there was no hope of recovery. The printer's exhausted body was losing the struggle.^3. Plantin too knew that the end was near, but without complaint and with inexhaustible patience and strength of spirit he endured great pain, remaining fully conscious to the last.

He died in the early hours of 1st July. About midnight he gave his blessing and last words of good counsel to the members of his family gathered round the bed: ‘mes enfants tenés tousjours Paix, Amour et Concorde par ensemble.’ A little later, still quite conscious, he conversed with the Jesuit, Father Matthias, who was watching with the family. Then he said softly ‘O Jesu’ and sank back. For a moment those present thought that he had fainted away. But Plantin had gone. ‘Et cecy advint le premier de Juillet [1589] du matin à trois heures. Triste matinée pour nous en laquelle avons perdu ung si bon pere, perte irrestaurable si ce n'est par labeur et constance, vertus par lesquelles il s'est vrayement acquis ung tel renom qui ne perira pas bien tost.’^4.

Four days later, on 4th July, the royal printer was buried in the ambulatory of Antwerp Cathedral. In 1591 the family placed a memorial plaque and a triptych on a pillar beside the tomb. The plaque bore a Latin inscription composed by Justus Lipsius. One of the side panels of the triptych showed Plantin with his son who had died in infancy, the other Jeanne Rivière and

1. Jan Moretus's letter of 6th July 1589 to Garnier, secretary to Philip II (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1480).

2. Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1475. See plate 30.

3. Suppl. Corr., no. 218.

4. Letter to Garnier, 6th July 1589 (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1480). Jan Moretus described the last days and death of his father-in-law in generally similar terms in letters to d'Assonleville, 5th July 1589 (ibid., no. 1479), to Gonzales Ponce de Leon, 8th July 1589 (ibid., no. 1481), and to Ferdinand Ximenes, 18th July 1589 (ibid., no. 1486). The letters to Arias Montanus, de Çayas and other Spanish friends and patrons have been lost. The younger F. Raphelengius, who was staying in Antwerp at the time, also gave details of his grandfather's illness and death in a letter to J. Colius Ortelianus, 8th July 1589 (Suppl. Corr., no. 220).

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the daughters. The plaque was destroyed in 1798, but the Moretus family replaced it with a new one in Neoclassical style in 1819. The triptych escaped destruction and is still in the cathedral.^1. Naturally the compasses and the device Labore et Constantia appeared both on the tombstone itself and the plaque. They also appeared in the Epigrammata Funebria ad Christophori Plantini Architypographi Regii Manes, published by the officina in 1590. This was a memorial album containing tributes by scholars to the man who had so often served them. There were poems by Joannes Bochius, the learned town clerk of Antwerp; Joannes Livinaeus; Nicolas Oudartius; the Austrian Michel Aitzinger; Joannes Posthius, physician to the Count Palatine; Lambertus Schenk; Cornelis Kiliaan, Plantin's aged collaborator; and by Plantin's grandson, the younger Frans Raphelengius.^2.

Much more moving than this rather formal and high-flown official tribute were the words of solace that Plantin's spiritual mentor Barrefelt addressed to the family^3. and in particular the letters of his old friend Arias Montanus, who every time he wrote to Jan Moretus mourned the passing of ‘the other half of my soul’.^4.

1. Cf. Rooses, Musée, p. 246.

2. Cf. L. Le Clercq, ‘Une requête autographe de L,-Th. Schenckels’ in De Gulden Passer, 16-17, 1938-1939, pp. 21-27. For other poems on Plantin's death see: Sabbe, ‘De humanistische opleiding van Plantin's kleinkinderen’ in De Moretussen en hun kring, 1928, pp. 24-26 (three poems in Latin by Christoffel Vladeraccus and his sons, Joannes and Petrus); L. Willems, ‘Een gedicht van Jonker Jan vander Noot op den dood van Plantin’ in De Gulden Passer, 14, 1936. pp. 43-46; and Suppl. Corr., no. 289 (an epitaph by A. Pevernage, choirmaster of Antwerp Cathedral).

3. For example on 16th July 1589 (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1485).

4. Cf. the letter of 3rd January 1590 (Corr., VIII-IX, no. 1515). See also Jan Moretus's letter of 29th October 1589 to Arias Montanus (ibid., no. 1506). Justus Lipsius too expressed his sorrow and grief at the passing of the man ‘whom he had loved more than any other and who had loved him more faithfully than any other person’. In another letter he was to declare: ‘If the race of Plantin were to fail, I should no longer be able to believe in a single mortal. I extend to all his kindred that faith and trust which the deceased inspired in me during his life’ (Rooses, Musée, p. 228).

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Plantin the man

Christophe Plantin's importance in cultural history will be discussed later in this work, but this chapter dedicated to the founder of the Gulden Passer cannot be concluded without a closer look at the man Plantin.^1. This man has been variously judged. The most devastating criticism is that made by the Dutchman, Dr. F. Schneider, in De voorgeschiedenis van de ‘Algemeene Landsdrukkerij’, 1939: ‘On that day [1st July 1589] a truly great man died. A capitalist of genius as Pirenne called him - a judgment in which we readily concur. It is necessary, however, immediately to qualify this by pointing out that his genius had a very marked opportunist streak, especially during the period (which we have already discussed) when he was printer to the States General. The impression cannot be avoided that his printing-press, which counted for more than anything else with Plantin, managed him rather than that he managed it. To adapt Plantin's verba ipsissima quoted above, the press was for him a very chasm or abyss, into the mouth of which, by dint of much stubborn and uninterrupted toil, he was obliged to throw everything, even his own convictions. Even if this monster (the press) did not devour its master, it did consume his constancy, in the sense that he preferred to keep himself afloat on the stormy political seas of his day by tacking and trimming, rather than by holding resolutely to a chosen course. His motto “Labore et Constantia” applies to the printer, to whom we are grateful for his contribution to cultural history, not to the man.’ In a footnote Dr. Schneider completes his abrasive presentation of the case for the prosecution with an attack on one of Plantin's advocates: ‘I am fully aware that I have depicted Plantin differently from what is customary. Sabbe begins his book De meesters van den Gulden Passer: “There is no museum in the world where a particular period of history lives on so completely and poignantly as in the Plantin-Moretus Museum in the peaceful, picturesque Antwerp Vrijdagmarkt.” The word “poignant” betrays a too subjective view of Plantin. We must guard against being bewitched by the Plantinian atmosphere - Sabbe's “pious aura” - which can so easily blur reality.’^2.

1. Concerning Plantin as a person, particularly his character and opinions, see Rooses, Musée; M. Sabbe, ‘Christoffel Plantin. Een levensbeeld’, and De meesters van den Gulden Passer; H. Bouchery, ‘Aanteekeningen’; L. Voet, ‘The personality of Plantin’; and C. Clair, Plantin.

2. Op. cit., p. 30.

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In the opinion of the author, Dr. Schneider's harsh judgment can only be described as unjust - even if to do so invites the accusation that yet another writer has fallen victim to the ‘pious aura’ surrounding the Plantin House. The Dutch scholar completed his work in 1939. If he were writing today, after the upheavals of the Second World War, he might possibly express a more subtly shaded opinion. It should never be forgotten that Plantin lived in troubled times, in a land torn by war. From 1566 to his death in 1589 that war was raging fiercely and continuously. Fortunes and governments changed: sometimes the King was in power, sometimes the rebels. A minority of the inhabitants of the Netherlands sided with the rebels from the outset; another small section just as resolutely remained loyal to Philip II. The majority, however, played a waiting game and then followed - with varying degrees of enthusiasm - the party that was faring best. Plantin belonged to that majority. He flirted with the Spanish King and he flirted with the leaders of the revolt, attempting in both cases to gain some benefit for himself. His actions in pursuance of this policy were opportunist and not always free of ambiguity, but in themselves they were fairly innocuous. All they amounted to was an attempt to stay solvent in a difficult period. Plantin was no wily ‘collaborator’ seeking to fish in troubled waters, nor was he a cunning financial genius trying to make a fortune from the miseries and confusions of war. He was simply a businessman with financial worries who, caught in the midst of a furious political and religious conflict, tried to make the best of a bad situation. Plantin certainly trimmed and tacked - but did he thereby violate his own principles as Dr. Schneider so categorically avers? In assessing Plantin's character this question is more important than what the printer actually did.

Plantin was a Frenchman by birth. He did not settle in the Netherlands until he was about 30 and he never severed his connections with his native land: his sojourns in France were numerous and lengthy. There are reasons for supposing that he liked Antwerp and soon felt completely at home there, but as far as it is possible to judge, his patriotism remained purely local and did not extend beyond the confines of his adopted city itself. He could view political affairs in the Netherlands much more dispassionately than those who had been born and brought up there - and could attempt to turn this detachment to his own advantage. Plantin had no particular reason to

[p. *33]

(32) The entry of the Duke of Parma's troops into Antwerp. Etching by Frans Hogenberg. The defenders of the city capitulated on very honourable terms that were strictly adhered to by the victors. On 27th August 1585 Parma's soldiers entered the city, maintaining perfect discipline and order. Not a single incident was reported.

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(33) ‘Un labeur courageux muni d'humble constance resiste a tous assauts par douce patience’
Verse written by Plantin in 1589, a few months before his death, at the foot of a page in the book in which copies were made of letters dispatched from the officina.

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be more patriotic than the majority of the inhabitants of the Netherlands and risk his life and his business by supporting the States General party through thick and thin. He could, without sacrificing his principles, calmly deliberate and decide whether working with the rebels was politically and financially justifiable.

On the other hand, was he not morally obliged to serve the Spanish cause to the last? Philip II provided Plantin with opportunity that enabled him to become the greatest typographer of the age, but the monarch did not do this just to oblige his printer. Philip II expected value for his money, and that is what Plantin gave him. The relations between king and printer were always realistic and business-like; details have already been given which show that for Plantin the relationship was not an unmixed blessing, and his indebtedness to his royal master was by no means unqualified. Too much blame should not be imputed to the man for the fact that the printer followed a policy of careful - and remunerative - neutrality in a chaotic period. His actions were not in conflict with his conscience.

The question now arises: what kind of a man was Plantin? In his study Christoffel Plantin. Een Levensbeeld, Maurice Sabbe analyses Rubens's portrait of the founder of the Officina Plantiniana: ‘Plantin has the shrewd, thoughtful head of a Huguenot or of some kind of ascetic layman, but at the same time the striking features and lively eyes of an adroitly diplomatic, practical businessman. There is something of fanaticism in that face, evidence of an intense spiritual life, and yet also something coldly cerebral and calculating, telling of an acute, indomitable desire to win an honourable place for himself in society.’^1.

It is perhaps presuming too much to deduce these two facets of character from the physiognomy of a portrait; Sabbe's analysis depends more on Plantin's correspondence than on Rubens's likeness. That correspondence does in fact reveal that there were two Plantins: one a canny businessman, the other a soaring mystic. But these two aspects of Plantin were not kept rigidly apart. The businessman always let himself be guided by the lofty principles of the mystic, although he often found himself obliged to come to terms with the hard realities of daily life. As a businessman Plantin had waited on the mighty of this earth. He rendered such patrons all kinds of

1. M. Sabbe, ‘Christoffel Plantin. Een levensbeeld’ in Uit het Plantijnsche huis, 1924, p. 6.

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small services and flattered their pride in pompous dedications in the books he published. He wrote letters full of adulation to numerous other prominent persons, but in this Plantin was only following the custom of his age. It should be pointed out that his letters never degenerated into servile and vulgar obsequiousness, and if the exalted gentlemen asked for things that were not convenient for Plantin, he did not hesitate to refuse - albeit diplomatically.

Sometimes he stretched the truth a little in these letters. This also occurred - with monotonous regularity - in the many letters in which Plantin complained of his impoverished condition and implored Philip and other patrons for compassion and help. It might be deduced from Plantin's correspondence that he was perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy and that it was only by miracle that he remained solvent. It cannot be denied that he had to contend with serious financial troubles, although his accounts show plainly enough that he painted a much gloomier picture than was justifiable. Plantin's letters should be taken and interpreted with a judicious pinch of salt where money problems are concerned. Yet what businessman ever admitted to his debtors or creditors that he was doing well? Plantin was acting in one of the oldest and most tested business traditions.^1.

Plantin was very proud of the business that he had built up from nothing and of ‘the fame of his name’,^2. something that he can hardly be blamed for, but his expression of this pride was never arrogant. Only once, in a petition to the Antwerp magistrate dated 17th May 1577, did he adopt a conceited tone concerning his forerunners and contemporaries in the trade:^3. ‘He [Plantin] has always endeavoured (as is the duty of every good citizen) to undertake and to do those things which were honourable and profitable to this town; but also agreeable to each and every one. In which God has so blessed his toil; chiefly in the art of printing; so that Antwerp printings (which had formerly been taken as a byword among neighbouring nations for things that were of little worth) have since been admired, prized, and sought after for the name of Antwerp and Plantin: not only by the neighbouring regions and people of middle quality; but also by foreign nations,

1. Cf. L. Voet, ‘The personality of Plantin’ in Gedenkboek der Plantin-dagen, 1956, pp. 206-209.

2. ‘Relation d'aulcuns griefz’, 31st December 1583 (Corr., VII, no. 1014).

3. Corr., V, no. 761.

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and by the greatest lords of Europe, both Spiritual and Temporal.’^1. In this case Plantin was trying to obtain a favour from the city government, and this explains his unusual tone.

Plantin's business methods were not those of an unscrupulous commercial adventurer. His success was essentially based on his zest and capacity for work, honesty, sound intelligence, and clear-sightedness. He allowed no one to take him in. He once gave Egidius Beys the following advice:^2. ‘... or it may be that people want to make you believe things other than the truth, which is the way of some people and especially of those who live in Paris, to boast a great deal and always magnify matters ten times. But do likewise yourself, and if they tell you something of this nature, act coolly and keep your peace, patiently awaiting the outcome, and more often than not you will discover their talk to be mere prattle.’^3.

Plantin was no weakling and could give a good account of himself when necessary, although he was always open to reconciliation and agreement: ‘Mais je prise beaucoup paix et accord et vaux mieux gagner moins en paix que plus en fâcherie.’^4. He acted in this spirit when a fellow-printer, Peter Bellerus, raised difficulties over payment for a consignment of books:^5. ‘My amazement is boundless at so much trickery in making up accounts and such impertinence in calling negotiations and agreements into question. But I no longer wish to argue about the past, but hope by God's good grace to guard against this in the future. As for the Concordances [i.e. the books in

1. Original French text: ‘il [Plantin] a tousjours tasché (selon le debvoir de bon citoyen) non seulement d'entreprendre et faire choses qui fussent honorables et profitables à ceste ville; mais aussi agreables à ung chascun. En quoy Dieu a tellement favorisé ses labeurs assiduz; principalement en l'art de l'Imprimerie; que l'Impression d'Anvers (dont les mots estoynt au paravant usurpez par les nations voysines comme ung proverbe de chose de peu d'estime) a depuis esté admirée, prisée, et recherchée d'un chascun sur ledit nom d'Anvers et de Plantin: non seulement par les voysins et gens de moyenne qualité: mais aussi par les estranges nations, et par les plus grands Seigneurs de l'Europe, tant Ecclésiastiques que Séculiers.’

2. In a letter of 31st July 1567 (Corr., I, no. 71).

3. Original French text: ‘... ou bien qu'on vous veille (faire) accroire autres choses que la vérité qui est la coustume de plusieurs, et principalement de ceux qui hantent à Paris, de se vanter beaucoup et dire toujours cent pour dix. Mais usés de réciproque, et s'ils vous disent quelque chose telle, tenés vous froid et coy, attendant l'issue avec patience, et vous trouverés leur babil estre vray babil le plus souvent.’

4. Letter to Egidius Beys, 1567 (Corr., I, no. 98, p. 218).

5. Reply to Jan Moretus, June 1581? (Corr., VI, no. 934).

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question] I want it to be finished as soon as possible in order to have done with the past, and then after that I will do what I can: although I am in no way beholden to supply him any of it, yet I am most willing to supply this time in more than full measure.’^1.

As far as he could Plantin avoided lawsuits and wrangles with neighbours. Sometimes he made financial sacrifices in order to settle differences, becoming even the owner of a number of houses in pursuance of this policy. There is specific evidence of the fact that he bought a house called the Maagd van Antwerpen in 1580 in order to be rid of a neighbour, Cornelis Speelmans.^2. In Leiden he accepted two houses from Louis Elzevir (Lodewijk Elsevier) in payment of a debt, thereby incurring a loss of more than 400 fl. purely and simply to avoid litigation, as Jan Moretus rather acidly noted in the ledger where, on his father-in-law's instructions, he cancelled Elzevir's debt.^3.

Plantin used his connections - and sometimes perhaps misused them - to obtain particular favours, but never at the expense of third parties. He never stooped to persuading his influential patrons to make trouble for his competitors. In a letter to de Çayas, Arias Montanus emphasized Plantin's ‘great humility and patience towards his fellow printers, who envy him and yet to whom he never ceases to render good instead of the harm which he could cause them.’^4. As a businessman, Plantin was realistic and hard-headed, but honest and reliable, and his spectacular success was due ultimately to his personal character which, being devoid of all baseness, attracted enthusiastic friends who were ready to help him. Perhaps there were many who envied him too, but he did not have a single bitter enemy.

Plantin was a mystic. Although in his business correspondence he was as prosaic and pertinent as it is possible to be, he immediately became dis-

1. Original French text: ‘Je ne me puis assés esmerveiller de tant de ruses a faire comptes et a dire et demander choses impertinentes contre les pourparlers et accords. Si est-ce que je ne veux plus disputer du passé: mais bien Dieu aidant me garder pour l'advenir. Quant aux Concordances [the books in question] je veux qu'acheviés tout premierement de conclure du passé et puis après je feray ce que je pourray: combien que je ne sois en rien tenu de luy en bailler: mais je veux bien bailler encores pour ceste fois mesure plus que pleine.’

2. Arch. 98, pp. 183-184.

3. Arch. 110, folio 101: ‘Adi 5e de Juillet 1585, mon pere ma mandé que ie soulderois ce compte d'aultant que avec ce quil luy debvoit a Leyden il a fini tous comptes avec ledit Elsevier et luy a rabatu pour nentrer en plaides plus de 400 fl. de perte.’ Cf. Rooses, Musée, pp. 234-235.

4. Corr., IV, no. 620, p. 270, note 2.

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cursive and obscure when trying to express his personal religious feelings. These feelings have already been inferred:^1. they may be summarized as a total absorption in the ‘love in Jesus Christ’. It has been seen that Plantin's religious experience first found expression in the Family of Love, Hendrik Niclaes's heterodox sect, and later in the kindred sect of the Barrefeltists. But the printer was undoubtedly drawn to these sects because they gave a concrete expression to his own confused sentiments - or at least a fairly concrete expression, for the writings of Hendrik Niclaes and Hendrik Janssen van Barrefelt are just as involved as those of Plantin himself.

As a ‘disciple de Jésus Christ’ Plantin felt himself to be a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and as such he worked unceasingly to perfect himself. ‘Humility of heart’ lay at the foundation of Plantin's spiritual life,^2. and was a constant theme in his letters. Peace of mind was only possible through the possession of^3. ‘a good, sweet and patient humility of heart, the only mother of all goodness and of Godly gifts, the nurse of all divine virtues and the true seat of friendship, concord, peace, and union with that which is good, and the only refuge, strength, arms, victory and vengeance (if needs be) wherewith to confront the wicked and all those who, with a proud and overweening spirit, a malicious, foolish, sly or cunning nature should wish to subjugate or defile others’.^4.

Plantin was continually asking friends and acquaintances to spare him their praise and flattery,^5. not to compare him to Aldus Manutius^6. and to go on regarding him as an equal.^7. To Pontus de Tyard, who had approached

1. Cf. pp. 26 sqq.

2. Cf. the letter to de Çayas, late January 1582? (Corr., VII, no. 980).

3. Letter to his son-in-law Jean Gassen, November 1571 (Corr., II, no. 293).

4. Original French text: ‘... une bonne, douce et patiente humilité de coeur, mère seule de tous biens et dons de Dieu, nourice de toutes vertus divines et vray lieu d'amitié, concorde, paix et union avec les bons, et le seul refuge, force, armes, victoire et vengeance (si besoing est) à l'encontre des mauvais et de tous ceux qui, d'ung coeur hautain, braveté de courage, malicieuse, sotte, fine ou cauteleuse nature, voudroyent dominer, suppéditer, ou abastardir les autres.’

5. In addition to the texts quoted below, see Corr., IV, no. 585; V, no. 778; VII, nos. 982, 1089; VIII-IX, no. 1464.

6. Letter to Valerius Serenus, 19th May 1569 (Corr., II, no. 175).

7. Postscript to a letter from Plantin, newly appointed ‘prototypographus’, to Servatius Sassenus and the other Louvain printers, 27th June 1570: ‘Humanitatem quidem non detrecto; a titulis vero seu epithetis istis, quibus me fucare velle vestrarum litterarum inscriptione videmini, ut re absum, ita ut vos ad me scribendo abstineatis rogo. Prudentiam etenim nullam, minus vero eruditionem in me agnosco. Sincere itaque et simpliciter ut ad me peragatis scribere obsecro.’ (Corr., II, no. 232.)

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him on behalf of Henry III of France, inviting him to leave Antwerp for Paris, Plantin wrote:^1. ‘There is another point that makes me more scrupulous than all the others. When I see the fine titles wherewith it has pleased you to honour me before His Majesty the King I am perplexed and embarrassed, fearing that I shall not be able to live up to the half of them.’^2. He wrote to Janus Dousa, lord of Noordwijk, in a similar vein:^3. ‘Sir, Every time I receive letters from you I blush with shame at the many gracious phrases that you always address to me, for, confronted by these I feel overcome and confused, and almost completely reduced to a state of shame on seeing and reading your letter, feeling myself to be wholly unworthy of its preface.’^4.

A person who is humble does not presume to impose his opinions on others. Plantin was tolerant in an intolerant age:^5. ‘Thus doing (so we say) we have enough to occupy ourselves without amusing ourselves by being prejudiced against others and upbraiding them for their transgressions, save in the office of brotherly correction and instruction of Charity to the rectification of our neighbour and the gathering of souls to our God and Father.’^6. In March 1569, during Alva's reign of terror, this unfashionably tolerant man dared to write these dangerous words in a letter to Cardinal Granvelle:^7.

1. Letter of 4th October 1577 (Corr., V, no. 778).

2. Original French text: ‘Encores y a il ung autre point qui me rend plus scrupuleux que tous les autres, c'est que voyant les beaux tiltres de quoy il vous a pleu m'honorer envers la Majesté du Roy nostre Sire je suis perplex et honteux en moymesmes craignant de ne pouvoir correspondre à la moictié d'iceux.’

3. Letter of 6th January 1582 (Corr., VII, no. 1007).

4. Original French text: ‘Monsieur. Chaicunne fois que je reçoy lectres de vous je rougis de honte pour tant de gracieuses manieres de parler desquelles vous usés tousjours envers moy, qui a ce coup me suis senti et trouve confus, et presque tout transmué en honte voyant et lisant vostre lectre et preface de quoy je me sens totalement indigne.’

5. Letter to Guillaume Postel, 31st July 1567 (Corr., I, no. 72).

6. Original French text: ‘Ce quoy faisant tous (disons nous) avons assés à quoy nous employer sans s'amuser à partialiser et reprocher des malfaictures et fourvoyement des autres, si non en tant que l'office de fraternelle correction et instruction de la Charité le comporte à l'émendation du prochain et acquisition des âmes à nostre Dieu et Père.’

7. Corr., II, no. 169.

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‘At this time, which is very hard for us... God, by His grace, would incline the heart of the King and of his Magistrate to mercy and clemency towards His poor people, who wish to acknowledge their faults, and not destroy the good and repentant with the rebellious and stubborn.’^1.

It is hardly surprising that Plantin should have had countless friends among the foremost intellectuals of his day of all persuasions, Catholic and Protestant, pro-Spanish and rebel, and that these learned men often expressed themselves in the warmest terms on the subject of ‘our’ Plantin: ‘I have never met anyone in whom so much skill and so much goodness of nature is combined, or who knows and practises virtue better than he. Every day I find something to commend in him, above all his great humility and patience towards his fellowprinters, who envy him and yet to whom he never ceases to render good instead of the harm which he could cause them... This is no man of flesh, he is all spirit. He gives no thought to eating, drinking or rest. He lives for his work.’^2. ‘Plantin is humble and averse to all backbiting.’^3. ‘Plantin, that best and most trustworthy of men.’^4.

In 1567, in the prime of life, Plantin wrote: ‘Par labeur et constance on passe toute chance’ [By toil and steadfastness adversity may be overcome].^5. Towards the end of his life, old, ailing, and desillusioned, he wrote under the rough draft of a letter, in an already trembling hand: ‘Un labeur courageux muni d'humble constance résiste à tous assauts par douce patience’ [Courageous toil fortified by a humble steadfastness withstands all assaults with

1. Original French text: ‘...en ce temps qui nous est fort rude... Dieu, par sa grâce, veuille incliner le cueur du Roy et de son Magistrat à miséricorde et clémence vers son pauvre peuple, qui veut recongnoistre ses fautes, et ne perdre pas les bons et respentants avec les rebelles et opiniastres.’

2. Letter from Arias Montanus to de Çayas (Corr., IV, p. 270, note 2). Cf. L. Voet, ‘The personality of Plantin’ in Gedenkboek der Plantin-dagen, 1956, pp. 212-213.

3. Letter from Clusius (Charles de l'Écluse) to Crato, 15th March 1578: ‘Quae de Plantinio ascribes, satis mirari non possem: ipsius ingenium novi, modestum et ab omni maledicentia alienum.’ [As to what you write about Plantin, I cannot sufficiently admire it: I know his ability, and that he is humble and averse to all backbiting.] (Suppl. Corr., no. 137.)

4. Letter from Livinus Torrentius to Arias Montanus, 13th June 1587: ‘Inter amicos vero quos dixi occurrit nunc scribenti Christophorus Plantinus noster, vir optimus et sincerissimus, ac de re literaria tam bene meritus ut quo quisquam melius erga illam affectus sit, eo plus studii atque operae huic homini debere videatur.’ (Suppl. Corr., no. 204.)

5. In the poem ‘To young children of good disposition’, included in the preliminary matter of Les dialogues françois (Suppl. Corr., no. 265). Cf. also p. 134, n. 1.

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gentle patience].^1. In this emendated maxim Plantin's whole philosophy and personality are most poignantly crystallized.

Other aspects of the man Plantin must be considered if this portrait is to be complete. The printer was a man of considerable moral stature but, according to what he himself said in one of his letters ‘uncouth and ignorant’.^2. He was not, however, as unlettered as he would have it believed. Perhaps Plantin did not have the erudition of an Aldus Manutius or a Robert Estienne, but he could do more than just keep his accounts in order. He had a thorough command of his native French, which was always his principal medium of expression, and employed it to excellent effect. He also used Latin, Dutch, Spanish and Italian in his correspondence. This does not necessarily mean that he had completely mastered all these languages: his learned son-in-law and assistant, the staunch Jan Moretus, may have perfected such letters.^3. But that he did have a sound knowledge of the language of Cicero is shown by the fact that he made a French translation of Montanus's Dictatum Christianum.^4. This work was not actually published, but one that did appear was in 1584 Plantin's own translation into French of the preliminary matter of the De Constantia libri duo by Justus Lipsius. Plantin was in such a hurry to put the French version on the market that rather than wait for the ‘official’ translator, Loys Hesteau, seigneur of Nuysement, to complete this part of the book, he had set to work himself.^5. In another instance he related how he had compared a corrupt French translation with the original Latin text.^6.

1. Suppl. Corr., no. 277. Cf. also p. 134, n. 1. See plate 33.

2. Letter to Janus Dousa, 6th January 1582: ‘Parquoy si d'autre part je ne craignois de vous desplaire je vous prierois bien affectueusement que voulussiés retrancher de vostredicte preface quelques mots qui ne conviennent a ma simple rudesse et ignorance.’ (Corr., VII, no. 1007.)

3. In a Spanish letter of 15th November 1573 to the Italian bookseller Pietro Bocangelino, fixed in Toledo (Corr., IV, no. 498), Plantin explained that he understood Italian but did not write it.

4. Letter from Arias Montanus to Jan Moretus, 7th July 1575 (Corr., IV, no. 638) and Moretus's reply, mid-July 1575 (ibid., no. 639). Cf. M. Sabbe, ‘Jan Moretus I als Nederlandsch letterkundige’ in Uit het Plantijnsche huis, 1924, p. 70.

5. As Plantin himself explained in his publication Deux livres de la Constance de Juste Lipse. Mis en François par Nuysement, 1584. Cf. Sabbe, op. cit., p. 70.

6. On 1st June 1579, in the foreword of L. Vives, L'institution de la femme chrestienne, 1579 (Corr., VI, no. 829): ‘Pourquoy m'estant deliberé d'employer, selon ma petite capacité, quelques heures pour y remedier, avant que de bailler la copie à nos ouvriers, je prins le Latin en main pour le conferer au François.’ In the case of Olaus Magnus's Histoire des pays septentrionaus, printed by Plantin in 1561, only part of the impression appeared with Plantin's own imprint. The foreword to this edition would lead the reader to suppose that the printer himself was responsible for the translation from Latin, but in the other copies, printed for Martin Le Jeune in Paris, it is stated specifically that Plantin had commissioned the translation (cf. Rooses, Musée, p. 22).

[p. 133]

Plantin also had a good knowledge of Dutch. In the introduction to the Thesaurus Theutonicae Linguae (1573) he even describes the method he adopted to learn the language:^1. ‘For the desire which I felt about that time to understand the language of this country where a few years previously I had chosen to live and where I had been received into the number of the citizens of that noble city of Antwerp, and the little leisure that I had at my disposal to place myself under the instruction of someone who would teach me the said language, incited me to begin (just as an apprentice mason might do with the different stones from a plentiful quarry) to pick up and place as in piles and in the order of the letters the words which I first met with or which presented themselves under my pen, in order that I might later investigate the meaning and characteristics of the same, to learn to recognize them and make use of them as I needed.’^2. It was precisely the fact that there was no dictionary available to help Plantin teach himself Dutch that prompted him to compile, with the aid of his proof-readers, the Thesaurus Theutonicae Linguae - the first dictionary of the Dutch language worthy of the name. The printer even understood Dutch well enough to be able to translate treatises by Hendrik Janssen van Barrefelt into French for the benefit of Arias Montanus.^3.

Plantin's letters and writings give the impression of an extremely well-educated man, but this does not accord with what is known about his difficult youth. As a ‘homo plebeius’, the son of a valet, he had only known

1. Corr., III, no. 458.

2. Original French text: ‘Car le désir qui me print environ ce temps-là d'entendre la langue de ce pais où quelques années par avant j'avois esleu ma résidence et esté receu au nombre des citoyens de ceste noble ville d'Anvers et le peu de loisir que j'avois de m'addonner soubs quelqu'un qui m'eust enseigné ladicte langue m'incita de commencer (tout ainsi qu'un masson apprentif feroit des pierres différentes d'une abondante quarrière) à ramasser et mectre comme en certains monceaux et ordre des lectres les mots que premièrement je rencontrois ou qui se présentoyent soubs ma plume, pour après m'enquérir de la signification et proprieté d'iceux, apprendre à les cognoistre et à m'en aider au besoing.’

3. Cf. M. Sabbe, ‘Hoe stond Benedictus Arias Montanus tegenover de leeringen van Hendrik Jansen Barrefelt (Hiël)?’ in De Moretussen en hun kring.

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the university from the outside. It must be assumed that he was self-educated, which was not the least of his merits.

Plantin left a number of French poems.^1. They are not inferior, either in form or content, to the products of many French sixteenth-century men of letters that receive honourable mention in the textbooks of literary history.^2. Plantin's sonnet ‘Le Bonheur de ce Monde’, which is still printed on the old presses with the old materials and sold in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, has always been well thought of.^3. Plantin also prefaced a number of his editions with dedications - mostly in Latin - to eminent personages. Very polished in style, these offerings are usually less profound and less moving; there is too strong a whiff of incense about them.^4.

1. In 1890 Rooses published a number of Rimes de Plantin. Sabbe added four more poems in his ‘Quelques rimes de Plantin’ in Sept études publiées à l'occasion du quatrième centenaire de Chr. Plantin, 1920, pp. 31-39. The Dutch text was published as ‘Gedichten van en voor Chr. Plantin’ in Het Boek, 9, 1920, pp. 129-136, in addition with ‘Nog een rijmpje van Chr. Plantin’ (ibid., 9, 1920, p. 229). Sabbe combined these with the poems already published by Rooses, issuing them as Les rimes de Christophe Plantin, 1922. All these poems were reprinted in Suppl. Corr., nos. 257-277. An ode to Philip II, written and printed by Plantin, dated 28 January 1556, was recently discovered. It was published and commented on by G. Colin in ‘Une ode à Philippe II écrite, imprimée et reliée par Plantin’ in De Gulden Passer, 43, 1965, pp. 65-91.

2. There are, however, dissident voices: Colin in his study on the Ode to Philip II has not much good to say about Plantin's first poems. He recognizes that from 1560 onwards - with the use of the alexandrine - the quality improves, but he considers that Plantin was never more than an adroit poetaster. This judgment seems to be rather too harsh.

3. Suppl. Corr., no. 271. Concerning this sonnet and Plantin's authorship, see G. Mongrédien, ‘Le sonnet de Plantin. Curieuses imitations’ in Sept études publiées à l'occasion du quatrième centenaire de Chr. Plantin, 1920, pp. 43-64; G.A. Masson and G. Mongrédien, ‘Le sonnet de Plantin’ in La revue critique, 29, 1920, pp. 607-614. There are also Sabbe's studies: ‘Het sonnet “Le Bonheur de ce monde”, toegeschreven aan Chr. Plantin’ in Het Boek, 9, 1920, pp. 289-296; Les rimes de Christophe Plantin, 1922, no. X, pp. 52-61; ‘Het sonnet “Le Bonheur de ce monde”, toegeschreven aan Christoffel Plantin’ in Uit het Plantijnsche huis, 1924, pp. 33-40 (Dutch text of the French commentary in Les rimes); and Het sonnet van Plantin, 1928 (a publication in book form of the previous study).

4. Only a few of these dedications were included in the Correspondance. For example, VIII-IX, no. 1187, which Plantin addressed to Arias Montanus in Horace's Opera omnia, 1586. The letter to Granvelle, 17th October 1567, given in Suppl. Corr., no. 40, in which Plantin praises the cardinal as a Maecenas, is in fact the foreword to the Orsini edition of Virgilius collatione scriptorum Graecorum illustratus, printed in 1568 by Plantin, although dated 11th November 1567. An interesting dedication is that of the 5th March 1575 to Frédéric Perrenot, lord of Champagney, in L. Charondas's edition of the Codex Justiniani, in which Plantin recommends that human affairs should be guided by reason, and advocates high moral principles in business and the book trade.

[p. 135]

He may also have been the author of the chapter devoted to calligraphy and printing in the bilingual schoolbook which he published in 1567: La première et la seconde partie des dialogues françois pour les ieunes enfans. Het eerste ende tweede deel van de Françoische t' samensprekinghen, overgheset in de nederduytsche spraecke.^1. This ‘dialogue’ gives a rather slipshod impression. Presumably it was written in haste and intended merely to fill up space. It is a failure from the educational viewpoint too, being so technical that it is safe to assume that it was beyond the comprehension of most parents and teachers, let alone of the children. Nevertheless it represents the very first detailed technical exposition of the printer's trade and as such is invaluable for the history of the craft.

The most striking characteristics of Plantin's writing are its elegant style and ornate language. Many examples have already been given. The following passage is also typical and characterizes at the same time Plantin's personal views in the uneasy days preceding the Iconoclasm:^2. ‘I pray God to give wisdom and understanding to our governors that they may know how to make use of the example of our neighbours and conduct themselves according to it, beginning this play with the solution that our neighbours have employed, lest it should finally become a tragedy in which not the death of a few people brings tranquillity but a wrathful fury causing the destruction of thousands of good people, as many on the one side as on the other. For to give my true opinion, I foresee that unless these floodwaters are channelled off, they will so devastate the arable lands that the inhabitants will not enjoy the fruits of anything that grows there. And if the farmers who are tilling the land think (as they seem to have decided) to throw back this flood by force, I fear that this will only be done with grave harm to and loss of the possessions, bodies and souls of many thousands of persons who might be spared to us and saved forever by God's good grace.’^3.

1. Published with a commentary and English translation by R. Nash in Calligraphy and Printing in the sixteenth century, 1964 (second, revised edition; a first edition appeared in 1940).

2. Letter to Andreas Masius, 8th August 1566 (Corr., III, no. 336).

3. Original French text: ‘Je prie a Dieu donner sagesse et entendement à nos gouverneurs de se sçavoir aider et conduire selon les exemples de nos voisins et de commencer ceste commédie par l'issue dont nosd. voisins ont usé, de peur que ce ne soit finablement non seulement une tragédie ou la mort de peu amène tranquilité mais une furie enragée, cause de l'occision de maints milliers de bonnes personnes, autant d'un parti que de l'autre. Car pour dire sincèrement mon advis, je prévoy que si on ne donne un cours à ceste eau desbordée, qu'elle gastera les terres labourables de telle sorte que les habitants ne jouiront d'aucun fruict y croissant. Que si les cultivateurs et qui ont la terre en maniement cuident (comme ils semblent bien avoir délibéré) de rejecter ceste inundation par force, je crains que cela ne se fera sans un extresme détriment et perdition de biens, corps et âmes de maints miliers de personnes, dont Dieu par sa grâce nous veuille conserver et garder à jamais.’

[p. 136]

Plantin may not have been a scholar but he had a great admiration for science in its widest sense and for education:^1. ‘And as for me, I have always considered that the education of the youth of a country and all that appertains thereto, such as writing, printing and books, is of just as great importance, for the prince, as money or any other thing there be.’^2.

In one of his poems, included in the preliminaries of the Dialogues françois of 1567^3. he declares that his dearest wish had been to become a scholar, but since fortune had not granted him this he had become a printer so as to contribute at least a little to the spreading of knowledge:

Vray est que de nature
I'ay aymé l'écriture
Des mots sententieux:
Mais l'Alciate pierre
M'a retenu en terre,
Pour ne voler aux cieux.
Cela voyant, i'ay le mestier éleu,
Qui m'a nourri en liant des volumes.
L'estoc receu puis apres m'a émeu
De les écrire à la presse sans plumes.
Ainsi ne pouvant estre
Poete, écrivain, ne maistre,
I'ay voulu poursuivir
Le trac, chemin on trace,
Par où leur bonne grace
Ie pourrois acquerir.

1. Letter to de Çayas, 15th December 1567 (Corr., I, no. 96).

2. Original French text: ‘Et quant à moy, j'ay tousjours estimé que l'institution de la jeunesse d'un paiis et tout ce qui en despend, comme sont l'escriture, l'imprimerie et les livres, est bien d'autant grande importance, pour le prince, que la monnoye mesme ou autre chose qui soit.’

3. Suppl. Corr., no. 264. See also p. 134, n. 1.

[p. *35]

(34) Justus Lipsius. Oil painting on panel by Rubens, commissioned by Balthasar I Moretus between 1613 and 1616, some years after the scholar's death.

[p. *36]

(35) Christophe Plantin. Oil painting on panel by Rubens, commissioned by Balthasar I Moretus between 1613 and 1616. The portrait was copied after the contemporary copy in the Plantin-Moretus Museum of the anonymous portrait now in the University Library, Leiden (cf. plate 1).

[p. *37]

(36) Jeanne Rivière, Christophe Plantin's wife. Oil painting on panel by Rubens, commissioned by Balthasar I Moretus between 1630 and 1636.

[p. *38]

(37) Central panel, depicting the Judgment Day, from the triptych over Plantin's tomb. Anonymous oil painting, attributed to Crispijn van de Broeck (by Rooses) and to Jacob de Backer (by De Coo, who attributes the wings to Benjamin Sammelins).

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[It is true that by nature I liked to write sententious words; but the Alciate stone has kept me down on earth and prevented me from soaring to the skies. Seeing this, I chose the craft of bookbinding that has fed me. The sword wound I received later constrained me to write them at the press without pens. Thus not being able to become a poet, writer or schoolmaster myself it has been my wish to follow the path by which I may obtain their good grace.]

In this he was successful. Plantin became the foremost printer of the humanism of the second half of the sixteenth century.^1. He was not, however, a merely passive instrument: morally and intellectually he could meet the greatest spirits of his age on equal terms.^2.

1. To quote Andreas Schottus in his foreword to the edition of Pomponius Mela's De Situ Orbis libri tres, 1582 (Corr., VI, no. 929, p.264): ‘... te etiam, Plantine, ita studia libris, elegantiss, formulis, et emendatissime edendis provehere, pomoeriaque quam latissime proferre, ut barbaries sequioris saeculi minime metuenda sit, et publicum dumtaxat bonum respicere ipse, et privato commodo longe anteponere videaris. Tot enim labores pro R[e] P[ublica] litteraria exanclasti, ut, quod ex M. Tullii oratione pro M. Aemilio Scauro laudat Asconius, flagrantes studio laudis, in spem impuleris, posse virtutem sine praesidio Fortunae, quo contendisset Labore et Constantia pervenire. Macte igitur, et perge litterarum studiosis facem industria tua diligentiaque accendere: nec te a benemerendi officio, rebusque gerundis abduci quorundam improbitate aut calumnia patiaris.’

2. See also the chapter on the Plantin house as a humanist centre (pp. 362 sqq.).