Plantin-Moretus Museum

Definitely the best museum in the city! Set in a historical house, with almost all rooms open aside from the top floor, the museum explores the family of book makers and printers who built and lived here for many years. The museum takes around 3 hours to complete and has a free map + audio tour (many languages available. Crucially, there are NO screens or cheap exhibits which rely on ipads/ films/ digital galleries! Most other museums in Antwerp are plagued by having more screens than real content, but that is not the case here. There are a wide variety of objects on display from the family's collection, including paintings (some original Rubens!), statues, religious objects (see photo of personal altar), historical books, maps, print making equipment, and more. Much of the original character and furniture of the house has been meticulously preserved, including original leather wallpaper. It is a very impressive and thoughtfully presented collection. There is a courtyard with a pretty garden, free toilets, and a cute gift shop selling prints of historical pieces from the museum collection and stationary.

Unfortunately, covering all the windows, while understandable for preservation purposes, has rendered the interior very dim and unimpressive. I visited the Plantin-Moretus museum in 1980, when I was 14, and the experience was so memorable, I planned a trip to Antwerp including the museum, to introduce my daughter to Europe. The elegant building I remember is now a cave and the large ornate Bible I remember was not on display. “Meh,” was my daughter’s response. A shame.

Absolutely stunning museum! One of the highlights of my trip to Antwerp. The history of printing comes alive in the most beautiful and authentic setting. The old presses, books, and interiors are so well preserved — it feels like walking through time. A must-visit for anyone who loves books, history, or design.

When you love books (real books, not the digital kind), then you must visit Plantin - Moretus. The Plantin–Moretus Museum (Dutch: Plantin-Moretusmuseum) is a printing museum in Antwerp, Belgium which focuses on the work of the 16th-century printers Christophe Plantin and Jan Moretus. It is located in their former residence and printing establishment, the Plantin Press, at the Vrijdagmarkt (Friday Market) in Antwerp, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005

We visited the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, and it was one of the most unique cultural experiences we’ve had in Belgium. • The museum is the preserved 16th-century home and workshop of the Plantin and Moretus family, pioneers of European publishing. • We saw original printing presses, rare books, and priceless manuscripts that bring history to life. • The quiet courtyard garden added to the charm, and the hands-on demonstration was a highlight. As a UNESCO World Heritage site, this museum is perfect for history lovers, book enthusiasts, and anyone looking for something special in Antwerp. A true hidden gem worth adding to your itinerary.

I loved this museum. I even wrote a blog about it after my visit. The smell of paper, the creaking of wooden floors, the smell of ink… it was all magical to me. They also have a beautiful garden. Everything makes you feel like you are in another dimension.

This outstanding museum is a must-see if you have the chance. The exhibition beautifully illustrates how the early days of industrialized printing were likely as overwhelming and revolutionary as the dawn of the internet.

I loved this museum! It tells the story of the printing industry alongside the history of the family that owned the house it's situated in. You can see lots of old books and learn about how they were made.

If there was a single thing I was looking forward to during my trip to Antwerp, it was this museum. For my money, these are the best types of museums. But to each their own, I'm a nerd so I love this stuff. Actually I got kinda lucky, because the museum is closed certain days, and I was only here certain days, and thought I could visit a different day, but it ended up being today. My absolute favorite part was watching Rudi give a printing demonstration on a Gutenberg replica. I walked into the demo about halfway through a presentation he was giving to a group of German ladies. I only picked up on about half of it, but stuck around until the end, and by that time there was a small group of English speakers, and he did it again! Wonderful presentation. I do have a pre-existing interest in printing, so I knew a lot of the information, but was happy to hear it again, and really excited that he was offering some of the pages that he printed onto! As for the rest of the museum, you'll get to see a lot of examples of printing, lots of actual equipment, and shelves and shelves of leather bound books. Cannot recommend this museum enough. Unfortunately they are a bit ableist, so wheelchairs are pretty much out of the question (as far as I could see) and those with a cane or crutches will have moderate difficulty due to the amount of small sets of stairs throughout the museum.

This is a wonderful historic museum. Its main focus is printing, but there are numerous Peter Paul Rubens paintings (plus a few copies) and it's also a home from 400 years ago. I had no expectations, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It makes history interesting. There were printing demonstrations and the 2 oldest printing presses in the world. There were also thousands of rare books.

If you are visiting Brussels, take the quick train ride to visit this fascinating museum which is the only one in the world with a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The museum is the former residence and offices of a prominent Antwerp family that made a significant portion of their I come from printing scientific and ecclesiastical texts. When the business died out with the 9th generation, the mayor of Antwerp had the foresight to buy all of its contents (business and personal) so that it could be turned into a museum more than 150 years ago. It has 32 rooms, complete with furniture, books, paintings, tapestries, printing dies, and the two oldest surviving printing presses in the world. If you are into books, fonts, history, or other nerdy things, this is not to be missed. The docent was extremely passionate and very helpful.

Sparse house but cool videos on the printing presses and how they crafted individual letters then arranged and packed the letters into the templates for the pages they needed to print.....and then of course how they used the press to roll the paper through Very time consuming process and have to hand it to those in the profession for having the patience and expertise to create all those publications from start to finish These are the things I never thought about & exactly how much there is to be thankful for, to those who made it possible to share news, stories, manuscripts and the great masterpieces

This is one of the best museums I've ever been to. They do such a nice job of laying out the family history while showing how print really changed the world and how this particular print house spread the knowledge of science, geography, religion, medicine and more. I had planned to spend an hour in there, and end up spending 3! It was just so good.

This is a wonderful museum. I might have had a moment in the larger library. My roommate actually teared up. It happened. If you're a fan of books you're going to be a BIG fan of the Plantin-Moretus Museum. The museum is the former residence and printing establishment of, you guessed it, Plantijn and Moretus. The museum houses the two oldest printing presses in the world (yes, world) and has a huge collection of the original typographical material and printing tools, which are stunning to see. The main library is absolutely fantastic and contains some 25,000 volumes, and you can even visit the original shop where the books were sold to customers. Not to mention that the entire place is a gorgeously preserved representation of a 16th and 17th century residence, with leather walls and a collection of original paintings by Pieter Paul Rubens. If you are, by chance, in Antwerp this museum is magnificent and shouldn't be missed.

Perhaps a bit steep at 8€ a head, but this is a really unique and impressive museum that you shouldn't miss. The Moretus family of merchants made Shakespeare look like a pauper; these folks had some serious cash back in the day. It's absolutely fascinating to get such an intimiate look at something so significant as the spread of the printed word. From techniques to technology, the whole museum is well-designed, laid out and full of interesting things explained in ways that make them interesting. From two of the world's oldest printing presses, to antique wood and copper plates, to copies of tomes like Mercator's atlas and way too many bibles, this place is chock full of historical artifacts. Also, let me just say how crazy ridiculous it is that so many rooms in the house are wallpapered with friggin' guilded leather, which sounds (and is) obnoxiously expensive. "Oh, you have a leather couch? How quaint. My ENTIRE HOME is wrapped in luxurious leather hides." Eat that, royals!

Splendid! Absolutely worth going out of your way. It's the remains -- a complex of buildings from the 16th & 17th centuries -- of what was at one time the largest printing company in Europe. In business for over 300 years.

I'm really glad I got to see this museum! The house was much bigger, more interesting, and less crowded than Rubenshuis.

In the interest of time and attention span, I'll keep the geek-out to a minimum about how much I LOVE this museum. That being said, this is one of my favorite museums in Europe. It is widely considered the most comprehensive collection of print materials and print shop records in the world. And it's absolutely amazing. The building itself--the Plaintin and Moretus workshops and home--is phenomenal with its original, embossed leather walls, creeky wood floors, and low beamed ceilings. It is truly a step back in time and gave me an excellent sense of what Antwerp was like when it was the world capital of all things printed. Make time for this UNESCO World Heritage site; it's a must-see!

Nice museum, but boring for kids. The personnel of the shop is ridiculously rude.