308 the visitor was confronted with a dazzling succession of maps and atlases, all of them, in their genre, masterpieces of cartography: sixteenth-century work by, for example, Saenredam, Plancius, Langenes and Heyns; from the seventeenth century, when Am- sterdam map production was at its height, the main exhibits were naturally products of the great houses of Blaeu, Hondius andjanssonius, though there were also pieces by Claes Jansz Visscher, Jacob Aertsz Colom and Pieter van der Keere. Joan Blaeu's Atlas maior, varying according to the edition from nine to twelve volumes, was represented by volumes from the Latin, French, Dutch, Spanish and German editions. There were also two extremely rare world maps by Frederik de Wit, Nova et accurata totius Africae tabula of 1700, each measuring no less than 168 by 120 cm. The eighteenth century was represented by, among other items, work by the map dealers and publishers Covens and Mortier and Reinier and Joshua Ottens. But it was clear that by this time the golden age of Amsterdam mapmaking had passed: the accent was now more obviously on copy- ing and compiling than on creative cartography. In the nineteenth century mapmaking passed more and more into the hands of government agencies, while the technology of map reproduction altered with the disappearance of copper engraving in favour of the faster and cheaper lithography. The ownership of maps and atlases-now based on in- creasingly accurate scientific work-moved into the province of the broad masses of the population. The exhibition included numerous examples of all these developments, with a number of original surveying instruments, manuscript maps and copper plates of maps providing the finishing touches. The excellent 48-page catalogue was available free of charge. The Nederlandsch Persmuseum (press museum), which will in future reach a wider public through the medium of exhibitions held in Amsterdam University Library's new exhibition hall, had decided that the celebrations of seven centuries of Amsterdam could not be allowed to go without an exhibition of Amsterdam news in newspapers and pam- phlets. Amsterdam is, after all, the town in which the first regularly published news- papers in Holland appeared, and until fairly recently its Nieuwe Zijds-the Dutch Fleet Street-was something of a household word when talking about newspapers. Despite the difficulty of exhibiting such material, the organizers succeeded in presenting an interesting overall picture of written news media in the city, and although the exhibition was modest in scale the free brochure enabled visitors to assimilate a useful quantity of interesting information. From the sixteenth-century handwritten newspapers and pam- phlets and the printed newspapers of such as Caspar van Hilten (Courante uyt Italien, Duytslandt, etc., 1618) and Broer Jansz (Tijdingen uyt verscheydenquartieren, 16ig), one was guided past specimens of the French-language newspapers so popular throughout Europe in the eighteenth century, such as the Gazette de Leyde. The first signs of clear political alignment in the Dutch press were evident in De post van den Neder-Rhijn of the 1780s and in similar journals. The annexation of Holland into the French empire and the press censorship which Napoleon introduced led to the end of Amsterdam as a European press centre. The publication of the first Dutch daily newspaper, the AlgemeenHandels- blad on i October i83o, the declaration of the total freedom of the press in i848-only to come into real effect after the abolition of stamp duty on newspapers and advertise- ments twenty-one years later-, the subsequent rapid expansion of the daily press, the underground press network of the years of occupation between i94o and r945, and the sombre outlook of more recent years: all this was illustrated by well-chosen examples of this all too transitory material. 309 SILVERCARNATION FOR CHRIS LEEFLANG H.R.H. Prince Bernhard's favourite, not to say ever-present, buttonhole is a white car- nation. During the years of Nazi occupation, indeed, it became a symbol of liberty familiar to all. After the war a fund was set up in order to institute a new kind of decora- tion, the Silver Carnation. Comparable to the Royal honours recommended by the Gov- ernment, it is presented annually by the Prince to three citizens selected for the cultural work of national importance which they have performed quite outside their professional duties, out of unselfish interest and idealism. This year one of the recipients of the Silver Carnation was Chris Leeflang, who has been so honoured in recognition of his work for the book in the Netherlands. To be sure, as a prominent bookseller until his retirement many years ago, Leeflang did much profes- sionally. He was, for example, the founder and president of the `Committee for the Promotion of the Dutch Book', which combines all the efforts for the promotion of books as such. But the Silver Carnation goes to Chris Leeflang for his cultural work in his home town, Utrecht, and, more particularly, for a private initiative into which he pours much of his spare time and a great deal of effort: the bibliophile series published by the 'De Roos' society (see note on pp. 310-12), which he founded in 1946 along with Charles Nypels and G. M. van Wees, and behind which he is the driving force. Over a period of thirty years many book-designers, illustrators, authors, printers and binders have had the opportunity, through 'De Roos', to carry out ideas which commercial practice cannot take on but which act as stimuli or as quality standards for the trade. The influence of the series thus extends far beyond its 175 subscribers. Among former recipients of the Silver Carnation are the late Frits Lugt, the collector and expert on print collections, and Professor George van den Bergh, among other things the inventor of multiple printing; of those still living, we may mention the Am- sterdam bibliophile M. B. B. Nijkerk, the Shakespeare translator W. van Elden, and Mrs. I. M. Fennema-Zboray, who has done so much to improve the quality of children's literature in Holland. CENTENARYOF THE PLANTIN-MORETUSMUSEUM, 1876-1976 Until June 1 576,Christopher Plantin had been working sixteen presses in no fewer than seven separate workshops in the Kammenstraat in Antwerp. By that time he was plan- ning to build himself a more suitable complex of workshops and dwelling-houses to ac- commodate not only his staff and the presses but also his own family. In November of that year, however, the Spanish put an end to Antwerp's prosperity and that of the Officina Plantiniana. Plantin was never to see what we now call the Museum. He had to be con- tent with a smallish part of it, which he called the Gulden Passer (Golden Compasses). Later, over a period of some three centuries, his heirs, the Moretuses, gradually pro- ceeded with the building of what was to become one of the richest patrician houses of Antwerp. In 1873 rumours began to circulate that some English art-lovers had approached Ed- ward Moretus with a project for buying the art treasures of the Gulden Passer. There was a strong feeling, however, that they should remain in Antwerp, and finally this view prevailed, so that on 20 April 1876 the City of Antwerp, with financial aid from the government, bought the Gulden Passer and all its belongings with the explicit aim of converting it into a museum. The Plantin-Moretus Museum was officially opened on 19 August 1877. Its curators have been successively Max Rooses (1876-1914), Dr. Jan Denuce (1914-18), Dr. Maurits .