Kristof Selleslach (Museum Plantin-Moretus)
In the mid-16th century, Frenchman Christopher Plantin (c. 1520-1589) set up a printing press in the booming city of Antwerp. Soon he owned the largest printing and publishing enterprise in Europe. His heirs from the Moretus family continued the printing business, although on a gradually decreasing scale. The business records were kept in almost its entirety, which is highly unusual for an early modern printing house. That is why UNESCO included the archives of the Officina Plantiniana on its Memory of the World list.
Knowledge was spread across Europe, from the heart of the Low Countries to the periphery of the continent. This paper aims to explore the potential of the Plantin Press archives to study the dissemination of knowledge between Antwerp and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th century. A few Lithuanian authors published at the Officina Plantiniana. Books from Antwerp reached the Commonwealth through the Frankfurt Book Fair. Polish students studying at the University of Louvain bought books in the Officina’s bookshop. The Moretuses also printed liturgical annexes specifically for the Polish market. Based on these examples, I explore the business archives of the Officina Plantiniana as a source of information.