Kristof Selleslach

Een onzichtbare vennoot | Museum Plantin-Moretus Als weduwe van de jonggestorven Jan II Moretus was Maria de Sweert haar half leven lang vennoot van de Officina Plantiniana. Toch bleef haar bijdrage aan het succes van de Plantijnse drukkerij zo goed...

Ook in het Nederlands te lezen als een 'Verhaal uit het Plantijnse archief' 👇

museumplantinmoretus.be/nl/pagina/ee...

The invisible partner Unveiling Maria de Sweert’s role in the Plantin Press

New blog post! Explore Maria de Sweert’s overlooked contribution to the Plantin Press and its 17th-century legacy.

Full story👉 medium.com/@museumplant...

#BookHistory #earlymodern #WomensAgency #WomeninHistory #Bluestorians #Skystorians #PlantinPress #History

Archival research is certainly welcome! Please bear in mind that sources from the late 18th & early 19th century have not been digitised. If you are able to visit the reading room in person, I will show you where you might look. However, success is never guaranteed.

Fellowship Programme | Museum Plantin-Moretus 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 res...

Studying #earlymodern #bookhistory, #rarebooks, or print culture? Antwerp’s Museum Plantin-Moretus & the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library offer unmatched treasures.

Apply for the Nottebohm Fellowship by October 1: museumplantinmoretus.be/en/page/fell...! 💙📚📜

A vertically oriented rectangular graphic features a partly colorized print of a large, arcaded building with high ceilings held up by tall pillars. Inside the building, as well as on the street in the foreground, are several people in Renaissance dress, as well as a couple of dogs. Some of the people are climbing ladders, while others appear to be operating printing presses. Below this image is information about Mark McConnell’s public lecture.

Mark McConnell will give the 2025 Karmiole Endowed Lecture on “Publishing in the Renaissance: Christophe Plantin’s Business Strategy” at 5:30 p.m. ET on 11 June in UVA’s Special Collections Library Auditorium or via Zoom.

Details: rarebookschool.org/programs/lectures

Museum Plantin-Moretus, Arch. 100, p. 531, Meat bill for the wedding of Maria de Sweert and Jan Moretus II, July 1605.

All you need to do is consult the wedding file, as most of the bills have been kept. The wedding party took place at Gaspar Offermans’ house, the bride’s brother-in-law. The food expenses run from here until image 541. Here is the meat bill.
dams.antwerpen.be/asset/H1jYXZ...

#earlymodern
#wedding

Museum Plantin-Moretus, Arch. 100, fol. 505, Invoice from Hans van Velroeij to Gaspas Offermans for the delivery of tablecloths and napkins for the wedding of Maria de Sweert and Jan Moretus II in July 1605. The archive document has an exceptional length of 105 by 15 centimetres.

Impressed by this #earlymodern bill measuring 105 cm in length, which resembles an exceptionally lengthy supermarket receipt. Table linen merchant Hans van Velroeij supplied dozens of tablecloths and napkins for the wedding of Maria de Sweert and Jan Moretus II in July 1605.

#Skystorians
#Antwerp

Cavagnole Een 18de-eeuws gezelschapsspel

If you can't make it to Antwerp this afternoon, I have also expounded the reinvention of Cavagnole in a blog post (only for Dutch readers) medium.com/@museumplant...

Ready for my lecture on Cavagnole, an 18th-century game of chance played by the higher circles. I reinvented the game based on the handwritten rules I found in the Plantin-Moretus Archives. To play the game, you just need a deck of cards, coins, and a washcloth.

#Erfgoeddag
#Skystorians

Manuscript title page of Joannes Paules de Mont's book on the temptations of the Devil and the Flesh, Antwerp, ca 1680 (Museum Plantin-Moretus, Arch. 273)

Wannabe author Joannes Paulus de Mont already designed a title page for his book on the temptations of the Devil and the flesh. Unfortunately, the Antwerp priest never found a printer to actually publish his book.
#booksky
#bookhistory
#skystorians
#earlymodern
#antwerp

Join us for the Summer School Books and Culture on The Religious Image @Ruusbroec Institute and @Museum Platin-Moretus in Antwerpen (30 June-5 July 2025). More information and apply: buff.ly/3QjN4EY
#uantwerpen #summerschool #bookhistory

I might be able to answer a few questions on Early Modern typography, but @joostdepuydt.bsky.social certainly can

The regulations in Dutch for the employees working at the Plantin Press dated from 1555. Printed on parchment in a roman type. The leaf contains some annotations on the bottom with added regulations.

Detail of the word 'druclerie' (printing office) spelled with an 'lz' instead of a 'k'

Detail of the word 'boeclzbinders' (bookbinders) spelled with an 'lz' instead of a 'k'

Detail of the word 'winclzellznecht' (shop assistant) spelled with an 'lz' instead of a 'k'

Easy as ABC?

During his first years of printing, it seems that Christophe Plantin as a printer with French origin had no letters 'k' available for this particular roman typeface, leading him to combine the letters 'lz' in his printed regulation for his employees in the printing office.

📚💙📜

[2/2]
2. The second proofreader corrects the 1st proof and hears the 3rd proof.
3. The third proofreader reads the 1st proof and hears to the red proof; he reads and corrects the 2nd proof.

Archival source: MPM Arch. 193, f. 97v

Instruction on proofreading, ca 1808 (MPM Arch. 193, f. 97v)

How do you correct (liturgical) proofs when you have three proofreaders at your disposal?
1. The first or oldest proofreader reads the red proof and corrects the 2nd and 3rd proofs.
[1/2]

#bookhistory
#earlymodern
#howto
#proofreading
#anno1808

Printed work regulation of the Plantin Press, Antwerp, [1570-1572], tg:mpmak:25

Tiny hole with rusty brown edges in one of Christophe Plantin's printed work regulations, Antwerp, [1570-1572], tg:mpmak:25

Tiny hole with rusty brown edges in one of Christophe Plantin's printed work regulations, Antwerp, [1570-1572], tg:mpmak:25

Looking at tiny holes with rusty brown edges, indicating that Antwerp printer Christophe Plantin once nailed this work regulation to the wall of his workshop.

#bookhistory
#earlymodern
#plantinpress
#workregulations
#skystorians

'Grooten Boeck' in calligraphic letters, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Arch. 432, incipit

'Journael' in calligraphic letters, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Arch. 487, incipit

'Livre du magasin commençant l'an 1745' in calligraphic letters, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Arch. 848, binding.

Creative accounting: #Earlymodern accountants often started a new accounting book with a calligraphic title. Contemporary accountants no longer have the opportunity to indulge their calligraphic talents in digital accounting systems.

#Accounting
#Calligraphy
#Skystorian
#History
#Booksky

Very excited that my article on the privilege summaries printed by Balthasar Moretus I has just been published in @emlcjournal.bsky.social 😍📖 The article is available in open access at emlc-journal.org/article/view... (the DOI provided appears to be invalid)

#bookhistory
#earlymodern

Nice, but is there a one-word term in English like in Dutch to denote this profession rather than fore-edge closure maker?

Account of Willem vander Waeren in the bookbinders ledger 1666-1681, MPM Arch. 763, fol. 13r.

Account of Willem vander Waeren's widow in the bookbinders ledger 1666-1681, MPM Arch. 763, fol. 14r.

I love the obsolete Dutch word ‘boeksluiter’, the contemporary term in the Plantin Archives to denote the craftsman who makes metal book clasps. Even women were employed in this trade like Willem vander Waeren’s widow. What would be the English equivalent for ‘boeksluiter’?
#bookhistory
#herbook

Replica of Georg Köler, Kurze Beschreibung des auß Irland, Nürnberg 1631, Germanisches Nationalmuseum

Details of Granjon's combinable ornaments in the replica

I have never seen Granjon's combinable ornaments so tiny as in this frame. I understand that sometimes you have to exhibit a facsimile instead of an original print, but why does the replica have to shrink so much?
#houseofeuropeanhistory
#bellumetartes
#bookhistory
#earlymodern
#typography

Christophe Plantin's first trademark CPLNT

A page in Christophe Plantin's journal for the shipments of books to Paris and Frankfurt, 1556-1559 (MPM Arch. 34, p. 30)

The first time Christophe Plantin used his trademark, he still included the letter ‘C’ of his first name. Later, Plantin and his successors from the Moretus family simplified the trademark to PLNT.
#bookhistory #earlymodern #skystorians

Zanna Van Loon explaining the craft of bookbinding

What a bookbinding order looked like in early modern Antwerp

The first speaker of the Materiality session @zannavanloon.bsky.social gave a fantastic talk about the collaboration between Christoph Plantin and the bookbinders in 16th-century Antwerp.
#bookhistory #bookbinding #Antwerp #books #Plantin #earlymodern

Very pleased to find facsimiles from the Plantin-Moretus Archives in the temporary exhibition "Text is not our type" at the National Library of Latvia

Presenting a paper on the training of Balthasar Moretus III on the shop floor of the #PlantinPress with a phenomenal view on Riga's old city on the background. I would like to thank the National Library of Latvia for this opportunity.

#bookhistory
#earlymodernhistory
#plantinmoretus