Catalogue of the Plantin-Moretus Museum / by Max Rooses ; completed by Maurice Sabbe.

  • Max Rooses
Date:
[1924]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Catalogue of the Plantin-Moretus Museum / by Max Rooses ; completed by Maurice Sabbe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the audienciei- Claude Porret, with whom he had been brought up in Lyons. Having been friends from childhood, they called each other brothers, and this habit, which they kept up during their lifetime, became the foundation to a legend on the origin of Plantin and Porret. Both, it was said, were sons of the illustrious Charles de Tiercelin, who died crowned with glory, but devoid of fortune. His children having to provide for their sustenance by the labour of their hands, resolved to do so with courage. But, in order not to dishonour the arms of their noble ancestors, they assumed the plebeian names of two plants, the plantain and the leek, in French Plantain and Porret. One became a bookseller, the other an apothecary. Only the last sentence of this story is true. Plantin, after his marriage, lived some time in Paris. In 1649 he settled as a bookbinder and casket-maker, at Ant¬ werp, which was at that time, together with the Capital of France, the most flourishing town of the north-west of our continent. He first lived in the « Lombaardenvest » near the «Kammersstraat>) and next removed to one of the streets in the neighbourhood of the Borse (Exchange) where we find him established in 1555. He soon became known as a clever workman; his bindings, his caskets and cases, his works in gilding and marquetry on leather, excelled in beauty all that was made of that kind in the Ne¬ therlands. He was well received by the learned men then residing
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