PROLOGUE

International Publishing in the

Th e Netherlands, or the Lowlands, emerged as a culture area in the eighth century. Th ey were a loosely linked conglomeration of fiefdoms, bordered in the East by German states and in the South by . Th e territory was peopled by Frisians in the North, Saxons and Franks in the South. Linked by their location in the delta of the great rivers Rhine and Meuse, common trade developed and a distinct Germanic lan- guage, Low Dutch, evolved. By 1450, at the time of the introduction of the printing press in Europe, the various independent states of Flanders, Brabant, Limburg, Gelderland, and Zeeland came under the control of the Dukes of Burgundy, closely allied with the French king. Later, Philip (the Good) (1396–1467) became the fi rst Burgundian ruler to separate himself from France. Aft er the death of his son, Charles (the Bold) (1433–1477), the French possessions were lost, and the next genera- tion, Charles’ daughter Maria (1457–1482) and her Hapsburg husband Maximilian (1459–1519), consolidated their rule of the Netherlands. Th eir son, Philip (the Fair) (1478–1506) was born and raised in Flanders and was fl uent in the local language and a supporter of the arts. He married Juana of Aragon (1479–1555), and their son Charles V (1500–1558), born in Ghent and equally steeped in the Netherlandish culture, ultimately, because of his mother’s heritage, became the emperor of Spain and the Netherlands; a fateful combination indeed. Printing was initially slow to take hold in the Netherlands, but by 1500 there were several active printers in Louvain, Brussels and in the South, and in Haarlem, Gouda, Delft , Utrecht, Deventer and Zwolle in the North. Th e European book trade, which followed the introduction of the printing press in the second half of the fi ft eenth century, transcended political boundaries, despite, as well as some- times due to, governmental and church censorship eff orts. By the mid- dle of the sixteenth century, a network of enterprising printers and booksellers had been active for decades in , , , Spain, France and the Netherlands.1 and classical texts were the

1 Hirsch (1974). 2 prologue main staple of the international trade.2 National annual fairs were important for the display and trade in books. Frankfurt, which had been a European mercantile center for centuries, became the home of a large international bi-annual fair in which books were exchanged and traded by a great number of publishers and their agents. Most of the Netherlandic printers concentrated their eff orts on the local and regional markets, but some of them also catered directly to those in Germany, and France as authors in those countries were oft en suppressed for political or religious reasons. One of the early Dutch participants in the international book trade was the Gouda printer Gerard Leeu (ca.1445–1492), who printed in , French and English. Among his commercial successes was the fi rst Latin edition of Marco Polo’s travels in 1483. He moved his business to Antwerp in 1484, as that city was rapidly becoming the major book trade center for the Netherlands in the early sixteenth century. Its geographic location allowed for a convergence of trade routes between the North and the South and its convenient access to coastal seafare. Business prospered and Antwerp boosted a considerable foreign population, giving it a cosmopolitan atmosphere in which the arts fl ourished. Th e book arts fl ourished as well. One of the early Antwerp practitioners was the mathematician, cartographer and engraver, Mercator (Gerard de Cremer, 1512–1594). He was born in Flanders, received his degree from the University of Louvain and moved to Antwerp in 1532. He combined his skills in making globes, maps and astronomical instru- ments. Although initially supported by Charles V, he was arrested on the charge of Lutheranism. Despite a proposed compromise, he left for Protestant Duisburg in 1552, where he stayed for the rest of his life. Th ere he taught mathematics and produced globes and maps. His famous two-volume was published in 1595. His younger colleague and collaborator Ortelius (Abraham Ortels, 1527–1598) also worked in Antwerp. His major atlas, the fi rst of its kind,Th eatrum Orbis Terrarum, was printed in Antwerp by Pieter Heyns in 1570. Th e atlas went through many editions in many languages.3 Christophe Plantin, (1524–1589) was one of the printers of these subsequent Ortelius editions. He was born in France, trained in and established himself as a bookbinder in Antwerp in 1548. Plantin opened a print shop in 1555 and soon became one of Europe’s leading

2 Jones (2004). 3 Fockema Andrae (1947); Crane (2003).