One museum
On the prestigious UNESCO World Heritage List there is just one museum: the Museum Plantin-Moretus. This is no accident, because this complex is unique. It includes a prestigious patrician mansion and the only equipped printing and publishing works still extant from the 16th century. The Museum itself has now had a history of over 125 years. On 15 July 2005 the Museum Plantin-Moretus/Print Cabinet was entered as the ‘Plantin-Moretus House-Workshops-Museum Complex’ on the exclusive UNESCO World Heritage List.
A three-century-old business archive
In 2002, the business archive of the Museum Plantin-Moretus was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Plantin-Moretus Archive is a virtually intact business archive covering the period from 1555 to 1876. A goldmine of information about European culture, the history of humanism, the Counter-Reformation, science and printing. In the 16th and 17th centuries printing and publishing played a prominent role in all these fields.
UNESCO list
This recognition puts the Museum Plantin-Moretus in the same rank as the Pyramids in Egypt, the Palace of Versailles, the Acropolis in Athens, the Forum Romanum in Rome and other cultural sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
