Plantin. CHRISTOPHE, an eminent printer, was born at St Avertin, near Tours, in 1514, and settled as a bookbinder at Antwerp in 1549; some six years later he began to print. The books that came from his office are distinguished for their accuracy and beautiful workmanship and finish. His business prospered, and he had often twenty presses or more in active operation at once. The most noted of all his publications is the Biblia Polyglotta (8 vols. 1569-73), which was printed under the personal superintendence of Arias Montanus, the court chaplain of Philip II. of Spain. Plantin's editions of the Bible in Latin, Hebrew, and Dutch, and editions of the Greek and Latin classics, are scarcely less celebrated. He died at Antwerp, 1st July 1589. He had set up printing-establishments in Leyden and Paris, and these, with that in Antwerp, were carried on by the husbands of his daughters. His office in Antwerp remained in the possession of the family of John Moretus, his son-in-law, until it was bought by the city in 1876 for 1,200,000 francs; out of it was created the 'Musée Plantin' (1877).
See Life by Max Rooses (in French, Antwerp, 1882); Backer and Ruelens, Annales de l'Imprimerie Plantinienne (Brussels, 1865); Degeorge, La Maison Plantin (3d ed. Paris, 1886); and Correspondance de Plantin (edited by Rooses, Ghent, 2 vols. 1884-86).