Jan Moretus and the Continuation of the Plantin Press. A Bibliography of the Works Pubished and Printed by Jan Moretus I in Antwerp (1589–1610) by Dirk Imhof (review)

Jan Moretus had both advantages and disadvantages. As the son-in-law of Christophe Plantin he inherited a highly successful business. He grew it until by the time of his death it was worth many times what he had received. But Plantin’s has been the name best known in the bibliographical world, ever since Max Rooses energetically worked to promote the museum and its inheritance in the late nine teenth century. Leon Voet’s six-volume bibliography in 1980–83 followed his indispensible Golden Compasses (1969–72). Apart from a few exhibition catalogues (notably an important one on book illustration, in 1996), comparatively little has been recorded of the considerable achievement in the years immediately succeeding Plantin’s death in 1589.

These two substantial volumes rebalance the record. The long introduction provides an account of Jan Moretus’s life and career, as he became Plantin’s trusted right hand, a good linguist and a good salesman. They show a press with new emphases, responding to changing commercial circumstances across Europe, and with its own runs of successes. Moretus inherited from Plantin a considerable stock of unsold books, perhaps most notably in the natural sciences. In Justus Lipsius he had one of the most prominent (and productive) humanist scholars of his generation. In Ortelius he had the author of a highly saleable list of atlases in both large and small formats. In the city of Antwerp, for which he was official printer, he had an assured order book. His best-selling series of editions of the Officium BVM has tended to obscure the range of his work, and give him an unjustifiably dull reputation. His list of school classical texts is thin, partly as a result of losing a contract with the Jesuits, but this can now be seen as a minor part of the story even if it was unwelcome news at the time—much of the stock had to be written off as unsaleable, ‘non vendibiles’. Plantin had produced some spectacular music printing, and Moretus inherited unsold stock. He printed little music himself, and some plans to print more came to nothing. But there were major projects in some subjects, headed by the twelve volume edition of Baronius’s Annales, several times printed from 1589 onwards and also including Lipsius’s editions of Tacitus in 1600 and 1607 and of Seneca in 1605.

Imhof sets out his bibliography in alphabetical order of author, providing a chronological index as an alternative approach. He gives details of contents as well as of titles, along with collations and select lists of copies. For all but books in more remote places, he has inspected at least one copy, and in this he has made good use of his time as a Munby Fellow at Cambridge, which provided the opportunity to work round many of the college libraries as well. Oxford libraries are noticeably under-represented in the tally, as (apart from the Newberry) are those in North America.

In subject-matter, theology easily dominated, thanks not least to his best-selling series of the Officium. Historical subjects came next. But one of the most generally interesting elements to emerge is the immense amount of printing for local administration, including edicts and public notices. Imhof has identified no fewer than 554 broadside notices, on every subject from forbidding swimming in the city streams and ordering parents not to allow their children to relieve themselves in the streets, to measures taken to prevent the spread of plague, reminders to pay taxes and appeals for information about criminals. These survive thanks to the press’s own archives, and their scale is a reminder of...