Belgium 10 euro 2020 “500 years Christophe Plantin” Silver Proof in luxury case

What Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are for the computer world, Christophe Plantin is for book printing. A bit much, you say? Not at all! Especially considering the time Plantin lived in and the recourses he worked with.

The tale of a driven perfectionist, a convinced humanist and a multinational entrepreneur avant la lettre…
In the year 1550 the French book binder Christophe Plantin and his family ended up in Antwerp, at the time the commercial metropolis of Europe. Determined to build a career as book printer, Plantin succeeded to become the greatest publisher in the world in only twenty years’ time.

At the height of his fame, Plantin had 22 printing presses in his workshop and 80 employees who produced printed matter of the highest quality: from religious works such as bibles and breviaries to high quality scientific publications about mathematics, cartography and medicine. Even music publications and dictionaries were part of his wide selection.

Not only did Christophe Plantin have an iron discipline and masterful craftsmanship, he also had an eye for business. To attract foreign customers, he opened branches in Leiden and Paris. He also traded in maps, prints, globes and lace.

After Plantin’s death in 1589, one of his sons in law (Jan Moretus) took over the company. After him, nine generations of the Moretus family lived and worked here. In 1876, the last owner Jonkheer Edouard Moretus, closed the business. The publishing house and its entire content fell in the hands of the city of Antwerp and the Belgian state. The year after, the residential building and printing house were opened to the public: the Plantin-Moretus Museum was open for business!