Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerpen (7-1-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Yes, the first museum visit of the new year ;-)
And what a perfect museum it was!!

The museum got my attention because of a special exhibit about richly decorated book covers.
I love books and I love decorated books even more so we just had to see this. What I did not know is that the museum itself is in a 17/18th century house which is still almost original!!!!
Not only does it include living rooms with gold leather walls, furniture, portraits etc but also a bookshop, printing rooms, libraries (yes several!) and a very nice inner garden. This museum-house is also on the Unesco world heritage list; and for good reason ;-)

Well, let me tell you a little more about the house and museum. The house was owned by the printer family Plantin-Moretus. Obviously the house was also the shop and printer establisment as well as living quarters of this family. This printer has printed many of the books in the Netherlands of the 17/18th century and is quite well-known. The painter Rubens even used to make illustrations for their books. And he has painted many of the portraits that are still decorating the rooms of the house.

The library of the museum was started by this family itself in the 16th century and now contains 25.000 books from before 1800 alone!! They have a Gutenberg-bible for instance of which only 14 copies exist! And what's also very unique: the collection has remained in the same house.
The museum also has a collection of interesting maps, also printed and drawn here by Mercator for instance.

And to top it all of you can also see and learn a lot about the printing business here. Not to mention the sheer beauty of all the rooms and yes it is a big house!
The only reason why we would not want to stay and live here is that the wooden floors are extremely creaky and you can hear where the whole household is ;-p