Museum Plantin-Moretus

Lonely Planet review

The World Heritage-listed Museum Plantin-Moretus is home to the world's first industrial printing works. This fascinating museum deals with a prosperous 16th- and 17th-century printing family headed by Christoffel Plantin. Plantin moved from France to Antwerp where he set up as a bookbinder in 1548. Eight years later he started a printing business that eventually became the Low Countries' largest printing and publishing concern and a magnet for intellectuals, scientists and humanists.

On Plantin's death, the business passed to his son-in-law, Jan Moretus, and later to Jan's son, Balthasar, a friend of Rubens.

Some of the family portraits exhibited inside this museum are the master's works. Built around a central courtyard, the museum is worth visiting for the mansion alone, but also for insight into old typesetting, proofreading and printing processes. Room after room is filled with ancient presses, copper plates, old globes, Flemish tapestries and, of course, splendid manuscripts, including a rare copy of the Gutenberg Bible. In the age of email, it's hard not to admire the painstaking effort and dedication that was once needed to produce a 'simple' book.