PLANTIN, CHRISTOPHE

PLANTIN, CHRISTOPHE. — One of the most distinguished and active printers of the 16th century, founder of a printing and publishing business that lasted more than three centuries and, since 1876, transformed into a museum.

Born near Tours around 1520, he settled in Antwerp, first as a bookbinder and bookseller, then, from 1555, beginning a printing activity that soon assumed European importance and widely captured the book market. The first book printed by P. was an Italian text by G. M. Bruto, *La istituzione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente*, with French translation (Antwerp 1555, 12mo, 60 ff.), followed, increasingly in number, by works of classical authors, French poets, theological and liturgical texts. Between 1562-63 the workshop suffered a crisis due to accusations of heresy against P., but it soon recovered, and the decade 1563-73 is to be considered the most notable for Plantinian production, in which, besides fine Roman typefaces, illustrations were added in abundance to the editions of P., constituting a copious series of the best "illustrated" works of the time. It will suffice to mention among them the *Emblemata* of G. Sambucus (Janos Zsambok) of 1564 and of A. Alciato of 1565, and the masterpiece of P., the Polyglot Bible printed from 1569 to 1573 in 8 volumes, richly illustrated with magnificent copper engravings. But the severe financial strain had adverse repercussions on the business and induced P. to print thereafter almost exclusively liturgical works (missals, breviaries, antiphonaries), for which he obtained privileges in various states of Philip II of Spain, who always held him in high esteem. In 1576, due to the intensification of the religious wars, he was forced to emigrate to Leiden with part of the workshop, leaving in Antwerp his sons-in-law Franz Raphelengius (1539-96) and Jan Moretus and Moerentorf (1543-1610). In Leiden he served that university, printing editions of classics, scientific works, and in particular works by various professors, including those of the philologist Joest Lips (Justus Lipsius). Returning to Antwerp in 1585, he devoted himself to reorganizing the ailing business, but could not see more than the first signs of recovery before his death in 1589. The illustrious printing house had worthy successors in the aforementioned sons-in-law, but especially through Moretus, who became the founder of a prolific dynasty of printers who succeeded one another uninterruptedly until Edouardus-Hyacinthus Moretus (1804-80), who, in 1875, ceded the printing house with all its equipment (foundry, engraved woodblocks and copperplates, archive, and the complete series of P.'s editions) to the city of Antwerp for the creation of the present Museum Plantin-Moretus, perhaps the most important dedicated to the art of printing. Approximately 1,600 editions are attributed to P., with a great variety of texts. Most of them display notable graphic perfection and are richly illustrated with woodcuts and engravings, a reason not least of their enormous diffusion and appreciation throughout the learned Europe of the time.

PLATI

PLANUDES MAXIMOS - PLATINA

PLATA (1st) or CHARCAS, DIOCESE OF: V. SUCRE, DIOCESE OF.