PLANTIN, CHRISTOPHE. - One of the most distinguished and active printers of the 16th century, creator of a typographic-publishing enterprise that lasted over 3 centuries and, from 1876, was transformed into a Museum.
Born in the vicinity of Tours around 1520, he settled in Antwerp, first as a binder and bookseller, then beginning there, from 1555, a printing activity that was soon to rise to European importance and to conquer a large share of the book market. The first book printed by P. is an Italian text by G. M. Bruto, La instituzione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente, with a French translation (Antwerp 1555, in-12°, 60 fols.), followed, in ever greater numbers, by works of the classics, of French poets, and theological and liturgical works. Between the years 1562-63 the workshop underwent a crisis because of accusations of heresy brought against P., but it soon recovered, and the decade 1563-73 is to be considered the most notable for Plantinian production, to which, besides the beautiful Roman typefaces, were added the illustrations with which P.'s editions abound, 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 P.'s greatest work, the polyglot Bible printed from 1569 to 1573 in 8 vols., amply illustrated with magnificent copper engravings. But the heavy financial effort sustained had unfavorable repercussions on the business and induced P. thereafter to print almost exclusively liturgical works (missals, breviaries, antiphonals), for which he obtained privileges for various States from King Philip II of Spain, who always held him in great esteem. In 1576, owing to the intensification of the wars of religion, 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 "Moerentorf" (1543-1610). In Leiden he was in the service of that University, printing editions of the classics, scientific works and in particular works of various professors, among them those of the philologist Joest Lips (Justus Lipsius). Having returned to Antwerp in 1585, he set about reorganizing the disrupted business, but could see only the first signs of recovery before his death in 1589. The glorious printing house had worthy continuators in the aforementioned sons-in-law, but particularly through the work of Moretus, who became the founder of a prolific dynasty of printers succeeding one another uninterruptedly down to Edouardus-Hyacinthus Moretus (1804-80), who, in 1875, ceded to the city of Antwerp the printing house with its entire equipment (type foundry, engraved woodblocks and copperplates, archive and the complete series of P.'s editions) for the creation of the present Museum P.-Moretus, perhaps the most important dedicated to the art of printing. To P. are assigned approximately 1,600 editions with a great variety of texts. Most of them display remarkable graphic perfection and are richly illustrated with woodcuts and engravings, not the least reason for their enormous diffusion and appreciation throughout the cultured Europe of the time.