Christophe Plantin, a French printer who had…

Christophe Plantin, a French printer who had learned bookbinding and bookselling at Caen, Normandy, had settled in 1549 as a bookbinder in Antwerp.

A bad arm wound seems to have led him about 1555 to turn to typography.

His many publications are distinguished by their excellent typography, and he is original in using copper, instead of wood, engravings for book illustrations.

His greatest venture, the Biblia regia, which fixes the original text of Old and New Testaments, had been supported by Philip II of Spain in spite of clerical opposition and appeared during 1569–72 in eight volumes.

When Antwerp was plundered by the Spaniards in 1576 and Plantin had to pay a ransom, he had established a branch office in Paris and then, in 1583, settled in Leiden as the typographer of the new university of the states of Holland, leaving his much-reduced business in Antwerp in the hands of his sons-in-law, John Moerentorf (Moretus) and Francis van Ravelinghen (Raphelengius).

Plantin returns in 1585 to Antwerp and Raphelengius takes over the business in Leiden.