posted on 2017-06-30, 00:00authored byG. Massiot & cie
Baroque ornament became characteristic on the houses of the wealthy, but it was generally applied to existing Renaissance structures. Often the decoration on larger h\u00F4tels was concentrated around a courtyard, presenting an unobtrusive fa\u00E7ade to the outside world. Fine examples are the pure Renaissance Plantin-Moretus House. In a 34-year career Christoph Plantin printed ca. 2540 editions covering religion, law, history, science, languages and humanistic texts. The Officina Plantiniana (his press, which had been continued by his son-in-law Jan Moretus) was finally sold to the city of Antwerp in 1867 by Edward Moretus-Plantin and opened as the Plantin-Moretus Museum in 1876. It contains the two oldest surviving printing presses in the world and complete sets of dies and matrices. It also has an extensive library, a richly decorated interior and the entire archives of the Plantin business. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.