1895.] -'•^ [Rosengarten. 



and then to his son who died in 1730, and was succeeded by a brother, 

 who died in 1757 ; his sou continued it until 1768 ; his widow until 1797 ; 

 their four sons successively until 1830, and they in turn were followed by 

 one of the next generation down to 1865, and he, by a younger brother, 

 wno died in 1830, having sold the printing office with all its contents to 

 the city of Antwerp in 1876. The last book bearing the Plantin imprint is 

 dated 1866, but work was continued until 1867, and the last tax paid as 

 printers was in 1871. 



The Museum is rich in works of art, principally portraits of different 

 members of the family and the authors and artists employed by them. 

 Rubens and his pupils and contemporaries and successors are well repre- 

 sented. The books of account show exactly what was paid to them for 

 these pictures and for the drawings for the illustration of the books 

 printed by the Planting. The library is rich in illuminated and other rare 

 and precious manuscripts ; in editions of tlie Plantin publications from 

 1555 down to the last issue from their press in 1886 ; in autograph letters 

 and papers relating to their business during all these years ; in copies of 

 the Antwerp Gazette, from 1620, the oldest newspaper in Europe. The 

 shop still contains on its shelves the books that used to be on sale, with 

 price currents of books of 1593, 1628, 1642, and the Index expurgatorius of 

 1569 and 1571, to guard against offering books prohibited by Rome or 

 Spain. The printing office, with its antique appliances, and the memo- 

 rials of the most famous readers and correctors of the press, many of 

 them men of great learning, are piously preserved. The font of type 

 used in all these years is well preserved, and so are the old presses. The 

 library is rich in incunabula and rare printed books from Guttenberg 

 down, and by way of contrast a complete set of the Journal des D('bats 

 from 1800 to 1871. Autograph letters, fine wood and steel engravings, 

 maps, plans, portraits, vignettes, engraved arms, book plates, busts, 

 statues, are displayed in great profusion. The dwelling rooms are pre- 

 served in their ancient order, and show just how well-to-do people 

 lived in the sixteenth century. There are over fourteen thousand vol- 

 umes in the Plantin Moretus Library. The main library was built in 

 1640, and is still as it was then. The archives of the printing house cover 

 all its business from 1555 to 1864, and the foundry where the type were 

 cast still retains its antiquated appliances. There is no counterpart of the 

 old printing office thus piously preserved down to our own day. 



The question naturally suggests itself, if the first printers imitated 

 manuscript, how did Latin type come into use. The earliest books were 

 printed with types resembling the styles for book writing then popular in 

 the middle of the fifteenth century. Pointed Black Letter was preferred 

 for church service books, but for books for the laity a simpler form of 

 black letter was preferred, semi or pointed Gothic. In 1486, the German 

 character was first used in Germany. The first printers of Italy, them- 

 selves Germans, Sweinheym and Pannartz (1465-73), began work with 

 new types of the Roman form, but with many features of the black 



