Circa 152O-1589
Bookbinder, Printer, And Publisher

Renown. Christophe Plantin, head of the large Plantin publishing house in Antwerp, was the most famous publisher of the sixteenth century despite the fact that he offered no real innovations in terms of book or type design. His fame rested on the ability to tap financial resources, to exploit political connections to King Philip II of Spain, and to organize production of books along industrial lines. His famed Bible won him a monopoly of sales in all lands under the rule of the Spanish king. Plantin capitalized on his unique opportunities to create what French historians Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin have called "the most powerful book manufactury to exist before the nineteenth Century."

Antwerp. Plantin built his huge publishing empire without the aid of private fortune. He was born about 1520 in France, and he learned printing and bookbinding in...