We missed you
We're happy to welcome you back. But we will put the well-being of our visitors and employees first. We are taking take various precautions to offer you a pleasant and safe visit. You can read more about them here. We hope to welcome you soon.
Early printed books in Antwerp
The Plantin-Moretus Museum and the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library (Antwerp) are pleased to launch a new call for applications for our fellowship programme. We will award two travel grants for research into the history of the early printed book (15th-18th century) in Antwerp, with the gracious support of the Thierry and Frédéric Nottebohm Grant of the Nottebohm Family Foundation.
Discover the museum and collection online
The museum is always open online
We are always open if you go online. Go online with and dive into our collections, view our online exhibitions, take a virtual visit of the museum, browse through the museum guide, or listen to the audio guide. Everything to stay indoors and take your mind off things for a while.
10 video's about unique drawings of the 17th century
Curator Virginie D'haene will guide you through the exhibition 'Drawn to perfection', along the most spectacular 17th-century drawings from our collection.
Woodblocks from the Plantin printing house
The Plantin-Moretus Museum keeps an extraordinary collection of 14,000 woodblocks. With these examples of true craftsmanship, book illustrations and other decorative elements were printed in the Plantin printing house.
Reading room open by appointment
In our reading room you can consult numerous authentic documents. You will find a precious archive of printed works, manuscripts and drawings.
If you have a simple research question, we will try to help you as much as possible by email.
Not to be missed
500 years of Plantin
In 2020, we will celebrate the 500th birthday of Christophe Plantin. We will do this with a generous and varied programme that offers a surprising view of a versatile man: Christophe Plantin as an inspiration, traveller, letter writer and citizen of the turbulent 16th century. Will you celebrate with us?
New
The Plantinian Archives are a treasure trove of information about daily life at the Plantinian press. An That is why our archivist is able to bring the Moretus family and their employees back to life. The blog will be published on Medium, in English.
In 2020 it will be 400 years ago that mathematician and inventor Simon Stevin (1548 - 1620) died. On May 18, International Museum Day, the Plantin-Moretus Museum commemorates the mathematical genius with an online exhibition on Google Arts & Culture. After all, the 'Officina Plantiniana' was the printer and publisher of almost 90% of Stevin's work.
30.04.2020 | The Flemish Government has placed no less than 194 drawings from the Prints room collection of the Plantin-Moretus Museum on the Masterpiece List. The best of the examples is a sketchbook with 43 drawings made by Peter Paul Rubens when he was 12-13 years old.
The City of Antwerp and Google signed an agreement to digitise a large portion of the collections of the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library and the Plantin-Moretus Museum. This entails more than 100,000 works from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century that will be made freely accessible in the coming years via Google Books and the library catalogues of both institutions. The books to be scanned are no longer subject to copyright.
Discover Museum Plantin-Moretus’ new acquisition: an oil sketch by Antwerp's 17th-century Baroque painter Theodoor Boeyermans. The work portrays the glorification of the house of Plantin-Moretus.
The museum in a nutshell
Step into the house and the print shop.
Enter the world of the influential Plantin and Moretus family. Christophe Plantin spent his life among books. Together with his wife and five daughters, he lived in an imposing property on Vrijdagmarkt. Plantin and Jan Moretus built up an impressive printing business. Today, this is the only museum in the world to be recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Museum Plantin-Moretus
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