Epiphany 2026. 👑👑👑 The Adoration of the Magi, from the magnificent 1583 Biblia Sacra. 🖨️ Printed by Christoffel Plantin, Antwerp. 🎨 Artist: Crispijn van den Broeck. Epiphany #Antwerp #Bookhistory #Plantin

The Plantin archives: the gift that keeps on giving. An #earlymodern ledger for expenses on ‘white paper’ for the printing office with printed binder’s waste on its spine & a #medieval Vulgate Bible fragment as its cover. 😍 Happy holidays everybody! #rarebooks #bookhistory 💙📚📜

Early modern TypEx. #bookhistory #lithurgy

"Meet the Lada of my book collection. 🚙💨 Exterior: A tragic, low-budget 20th-century rebinding. 📦 Under the hood: Precision 1642 engineering by Balthasar Moretus. 💎 It’s ugly, it’s boring, and it has zero aerodynamics... but the engine is world-class. 😤📚 #RareBooks #BookCollecting #PlantinMoretus

16th-century recycling. ♻️ This 1524 edition in my collection hides a secret: 13th-century canon law used as flyleaves. The binder clearly didn't care about the text anymore, placing the lovely blue initial upside down. #BookSky #BookHistory

In one of my books (Tirini - JP Verdussen 1688) I found this printer mark. It is signed with the monogram DMP. Does anyone know who this engraver is? Thanks in advance! #bookhistory #antwerpen #verdussen

A student at the University of Leuven was bored in 1613 and decided to draw a weird figure. Photo shared by Zanna van Loon (Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp)

Infographic to explain so called “frisket sheets”. Generated by Google’s Nano Banana Pro. Impressive! The example is from my collection. #bookhistory #fragmentology #recycling

#Middelnederlands @fragmentarium.bsky.social #fragmentology

These 16th-century Antwerp volumes still carry inked titles on their fore-edges—a reminder that they once stood the other way around on the shelf. A small detail, but a wonderful glimpse into how early readers organised their libraries. #BookHistory #OldBooks

Just identified a fragment in my collection as a leaf from the Šaraknocʿ (Amsterdam, 1664) — the first Armenian hymnal ever printed in Europe. It features a woodcut of the Virgin & Child by Christoffel van Sichem II, reused by Voskan Yerevantsi in Amsterdam. #bookhistory #Armenia #Amsterdam

A wonderful page from a Parisian Book of Hours (Horae Beatae Mariae Virgine, 1490-1510) with and unusual floral border in the style of Bruges-Ghent. I love it! 😍 #bookhistory

Ohh look at this:

This frontispiece of Hubert Goltzius’ “Les Images de tous les empereurs” (Antwerpen, 1557) is an early form of multi color printing (Chiaroscuro woodcuts), here shown in 3 and 2 colors. What an artist! #bookhistory

Colophon in red ink from a recycled unidentified MS by Johannes Gredinger, completed on the “feria vi” after the feast of S. John “ad portam Latinam” (12 May?). The exact year is masked by the book’s spine label (@stabiberlin.bsky.social, Cs 6738) resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB000157260...

Jan Luyken’s The Plate Printer (1694) from Het Menselyk Bedryf shows the heart of an early modern copperplate workshop. The pressman strains at the rolling press while fresh prints hang to dry — a perfect tribute to human skill and ink. #PrintHistory #Luyken #CopperplatePrinting #BookHistory

Happy All Saints! Woodcut designed by Pieter van de Borcht and cut by Antonie van Leest. From a Missale Romanum (Plantin, Antwerp -1574). #bookhistory #plantin

Spilled my coffee travel mug in my backpack this morning - can you imagine the horror - so let’s just say some time with these wonderful #earlymodern miniature books was very much needed! 1) Gregorian Calendar (1585) #rarebooks #bookhistory 💙📚📜 /1

Not only MSS were used in early book bindings, incunabula leaves were recycled, too. Here is a short anthology! First, from the Corpus iuris civilis printed in Rom, 1476 (GW 7678). Only 15 copies are known! (@stabiberlin.bsky.social, Dq 8880) resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB0001655D0...

A selection of Froben’s decorative initials (1537) #bookhistory #typography #bookdesign

Book Waste Bindings

Found a joyful fragment in my collection: a 15th-century parchment leaf once reused in a bookbinding! 🎶 It preserves Tantum ergo Sacramentum — the Eucharistic hymn by Thomas Aquinas — complete with neumes and traces of blind-stamped leather. #BookHistory #Fragmentology

I have just put for sale: Books about Rubens - Rare set of 5 L'oevre de P.P. Rubens, Max Rooses Published in Antwerp 1890 Max Rooses was the first curator of the Museum Plantin-Moretus, a renowned expert on Rubens. Let me know if anyone is interested (2027 will be the Rubens Year). Price neg.

This #FragmentFriday is found in De Thiende (1585), a groundbreaking #mathematical book by Simon Stevin, introducing the decimal separator (now , or . ) for fractions. It has a 19th century library binding, but retains the medieval parchment wrappers it was originally bound in. 📚💙 📜

New to my collection. Opera by Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, printed by Merten de Keyser (Antwerp 1536). My first book of this printer. I love the typography of this time! #bookhistory #Antwerpen

It's not always easy... This #FragmentFriday is about an unidentified Latin text, B 255483:fragm.306. The text is difficult to read and overprinted with red ink - indicating that the original sheet of #parchment was used as a #Frisket sheet for printing a book in red and black ink.

🐘🐎🐫 #WorldAnimalDay — seventeenth-century style! Frontispiece designed by Peter Paul Rubens and engraved by Cornelis Galle for De militia equestri antiqua et nova (Antwerp: Plantin Press, 1630). An ode to cavalry — from centaurs to camels. #BookHistory #PlantinPress #Rubens

It's #FragmentFriday! Have a look at this #Antwerp almanac for the year 1568. It's bound in a vellum fragment with writing from what seems to be the late 12th century. #Medieval #Paleography It's (I think) a copy of the Decretum Gratiani, a compendium of canon law dated shortly after 1140. 📜 📚💙

☞☞ Hands-on reading ☜☜ The manicules in #rarebooks are fantastically diverse. Some are tiny & discreet, others take up half the margin; some have flowing sleeves, or even little faces. They’re glimpses into the personality of readers/scribes highlighting passages worth reading. #bookhistory 💙📚📜

De boeken van de zusters van Soeterbeeck zijn eeuwenlang intensief gebruikt. Nu hebben ze onze zorg nodig. Draag bij aan het behoud van de boeken van Soeterbeeck! radbouduniversiteit.voorradboudfonds.nl/project/soet...

Can somebody help me deciphering this blind stamp on a book binding around 1500? The second part looks IHS to me, but I cannot read the first part. ???|IHS Thanks in advance! 🙏 #bookbinding #bookhistory #gothic

I solved a nice puzzle this morning: unidentified Middle Dutch religious text on @fragmentarium.bsky.social (Antwerp, EHC, cf. @svanimpe.bsky.social ) turns out to be a lectionarium, comparable to the 1348 Lectionarium Amstelodamense (but with interesting variants). fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-8...

Books I saw at work: last week!

An in-situ fragment for #FragmentFriday. Peaking out of the binding of a small Greek edition of Polyaenus the Macedonian (G 5077) are fragments of 2 works. The colourful one is a comment on canon law (chapter "De disciplina in officinis servanda"). The smaller fragments are difficult to determine.

Just spotted not one but three different Jean Gouault watermarks in my 1583 Plantin Bible 📖👀 JGOVAULT, JGOVAVLT, and JEHAN GOVAVLT… it’s like Pokémon cards for early modern paper nerds. Gotta catch ’em all 🧐🧵 🔎🕵️ #bookhistory #watermarks #Plantin

It's #FragmentFriday! Today a 15th-century Middle Dutch manuscript, possibly a sermon or Bible commentary. It's in a binding with 3 texts printed in Ghent, 1618-1619. Quote: "wat sal dat scaep doen alst onder die wolve es" (what will the sheep do when it's among wolves?) anet.be/record/opace...

Does anyone knows who’s signature is the lower one on this engraving? The upper one is Crispin van den Broeck. This engraving is from a Bible (Plantin 1583). #bookhistory #MPM

Found in a book printed by Plantin (1583): a capital Lambda ("Λ") used as a V! The woodblock was made by Antoni van Leest in 1573. I love these little discoveries! collectie.antwerpen.be/global/searc... #bookhistory #plantin

Dogs by Otto Venius (Emblemata Horatiana - 1607). #bookhistory #internationaldogday

Where am I? What happened to all the old trees on the square? 😱

I am always happy when I see a printers mark that is signed 🙂. In this case the woodcut is made by Geeraard Jansen van Kampen in 1578. Found in IVSTI LIPSI AD LIBROS HISTORIARVM NOTÆ. @zannavanloon.bsky.social Did you use this printer mark for The Plantin Press Online? #bookhistory #plantin

Sometimes books are bound in (parts of) other books. Here is LJS 195, a 15th c. Medical Miscellany bound in a leaf from a 15th c. liturgical book. At the end of the clip is an unfolded leaf that was once used to cover another book; you can see the spine and the folds around the edges. (1/2)

Lately I’ve been diving deep into Rubens’ frontispieces — and here’s a gem from my collection: the Generale Kerckelijcke Historie (Antwerp, 1623), with a monumental title page designed by Peter Paul Rubens and engraved by Lucas Vorsterman. #bookhistory #rubens

Beautiful frontispiece designed by PP Rubens and engraved by Cornelius Galle ( #Antwerp 1630). This example is from Titles and Portraits (Max Rooses - 1877). #bookhistory #Plantin #WorldElephantDay

Just acquired this early 20th-century etching by Marten van der Loo (1880–1920), titled Musée Plantin. It captures a quiet corner of the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp — home to one of the world’s most important printing histories. #Printmaking #Antwerp #BookHi

New in my collection: Title pages and portraits, cut after P. P. Rubens. Published by Museum Plantin Moretus and written by conservator Max #Rooses in 1877. All the engravings were printed with the original copper plates! 📚 #bookhistory #plantin #rubens #antwerp #galle

Nice fragment of Saint Augustine’s Confessions (15th Century?). This fragment was probably once used in a book binding.

Parchment that was no longer read was often used to reinforce book bindings (1st pic). Sometimes printed paper was also used for this purpose (2nd pic). But ca 130y later, we find it regrettable that ex dono's were glued onto paper that was once labelled as unusable. #rarebooks #tomorrowsresearch

In 1866, Dutch artist Alexander Ver Huell painted this allegory of the cholera epidemic as a spectral “guardian of the borders.” The irony? He believed cholera, not diplomacy, kept Prussian armies from invading the Netherlands. #Cholera #1866 #satire #medicalhistory