, Edward Moretus, in 1876. To step across
this threshold is to step directly into the merchant atmosphere of the
sixteenth century. The once great printing house of Plantin-Moretus was
founded by the Frenchman, Christopher Plantin, who was born at St.
Aventin, near Tours, in 1514, and began his business life as a
book-binder at Rouen. In 1549 he removed to Antwerp, and was there
innocently involved one night in a riot in the streets, which resulted
in an injury that incapacitated him for his former trade, and
necessitated his turning to some new employment. He now set up as
printer, with remarkable success, and was a sufficiently important
citizen at the date of his death, in 1589, to be buried in his own
vault under a chapel in the Cathedral. The business passed, on his
decease, to his son-in-law, Jean Moertorf, who had married his
daughter, Martine, in 1570, and had Latinized his surname to Moretus in
accordance with the curious custom that prevailed among scholars of the
sixteenth century. Thus Servetus was really Miguel Servete, and Thomas
Erastus was Thomas Lieber. The foundation of the fortunes of the house
was undoubtedly its monopoly--analogous to that enjoyed by the English
house of Spottiswoode, and by the two elder Universities--of printing
the liturgical works--Missals, Antiphons, Psalters, Breviaries,
etc.--that were used throughout the Spanish dominions. No attempt,
however, seems to have been made in the later stages of the history of
the house to adopt improved machinery, or to reconstruct the original,
antiquated buildings. The establishment, accordingly, when it was taken
over by the city in 1876, retained virtually the same aspect as it had
worn in the seventeenth century, and remains to the present day perhaps
the best example in the world of an old-fashioned city business house
of the honest time when merchant-princes were content to live above
their office, instead of seeking solace in smug suburban villas. The
place has been preserved exactly as it stood, and even the present
attendants are correctly clad in the sober brown garb of the servants
of three hundred years since. It is interesting, not only in itself,
but as an excellent example of how business and high culture were
successfully combined under the happier economic conditions of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Plantin-Moretus family held a
high position in the civic life of Antwerp, and mixed in the
intellectual and artistic