The collections
The Museum Plantin-Moretus conserves a multiple collections. Old printed books and manuscripts, printing presses and tools, paintings, prints and drawings, furniture and paintings and several archives.
The royal Bible in five languages - Arias Montanus
Plantins absolute masterpiece: a Bible consisting of eight parts in five languages.
©Filip Dujardin
'Christoffel Plantin is famous for his art of printing, which enables art to live. His strong intelligence and admirable knowledge, his diligent work and effort, his strictness in everything. Thank you for praise.'
Biblia regia – Biblia polyglotta
The theologian Arias Montanus (1527–1598) coordinated the production of the Biblia regia for five years, working eleven hours a day. He wrote to Philip II: “More is achieved here in one month than in Rome in a year.” Montanus and Plantin became close friends. Even when Philip II recalled him to Spain in 1575 to help build the library of the Escorial, he continued to correspond with Plantin and Jan I Moretus.
With the financial support of Philip II, Plantin realised his absolute masterpiece: the multilingual Biblia polyglotta, also known as the Biblia regia. The work consists of eight volumes: four containing the Old Testament, one the New Testament, and three volumes of apparatus or commentary. The biblical text itself is printed in five languages: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean and Old Syriac.
©LUCID
