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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

A Wednesday morning spent with some treasures from our library ✨ #bookhistory #rarebooks #earlymodern #medieval 💙📚📜

Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Tiny title page pasted in Jan Moretus’ New Years gift for Christophe Plantin with title pages of all editions printed at the time at the Plantin Press. #bookhistory #rarebooks #earlymodern 💙📚📜

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Suzanne Karr Schmidt @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

ImPRESSed Yet? I am thrilled to announce that Impressive Textiles: Premodern Printing on Fabric will be published October 27 in print and Open Access with @acmrs.bsky.social, thanks to 30 textile and print scholars, and 1 groundbreaking exhibition @newberrylibrary.bsky.social! #CoverReveal 1/5

Cover art for Impressive Textiles: Premodern Printing on Fabric!

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Steven Van Impe @svanimpe.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Reminder: one more week to apply for the Nottebohm fellowship for #BookHistory research in Antwerp! For an idea of some of the research conducted using this travel fund, check out the recording of last week's Nottebohm Talks on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA2L...

youtube.com

Online Nottebohm Talks September 15 2016

YouTube video by Museum Plantin-Moretus

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Oh nothing fancy... Just an 18th-century binding with a crimson velvet spine and engraved silver-gilt plaques on both boards... #bookhistory #rarebooks #earlymodern 💙📚📜 1/

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Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

THEY GOT TO 2000 SUPPORTERS! Now in need of 3000 more in just under a year. LETS GO! #earlymodern #bookhistory #skystorians

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Anna Opryszko @anna-opryszko.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

And I would have gotten away with it* too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids**! *an exact index **inexact printers Edward Herbert, The Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth (London, 1649) #bookhistory

Printed text reading: “In regard that this Impression passing in Presse through the hands of divers Printers, divers pages are mis-cyphered, and others have none at all, this Index could not be made so exact as it might have been made otherwise.”

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Ahh I am talking about the parchment, not about the paper. The paper looks marbled or sprinkled.

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Indeed, but the result is that it looks decorated to me! 😄

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The conservator thinks it was treated to erase the handwriting, but that the substance used was acidic!

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Failed attempt to make my posts less beige… Two decorated examples of binder’s waste: one a late eighteenth-century/early nineteenth-century printed fragment and the other a sixteenth-century manuscript leaf. #bookhistory #earlymodern #rarebooks 💙📚📜

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Steven Van Impe @svanimpe.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Reminder: TOMORROW 2 researchers will give an online Nottebohm Talk about their #BookHistory research in Antwerp. 📚💙 📜 @ewatson.bsky.social on 'The Interconfessional Dutch Clients of the Officina Plantiniana, 1579-1723' Mitchel Gundrum on 'The earliest known European manual on #bookbinding (1612)'

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Join us on 15 September, 8:00-9:30 pm CEST, for our very first Nottebohm Talks! Former Nottebohm Fellows will present their research conducted in Antwerp thanks to our Nottebohm Fellowship. More info & registration: sl1nk.com/ti9htou Meet our speakers! 👇1/ #rarebooks #earlymodern #bookhistory 📜📚💙

consciencebibliotheek.be

Online Nottebohm Talks | Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience

Every year, the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library and the Museum Plantin-Moretus offer a short-term Nottebohm fellowship to two researchers, with the gracious support of the Thierry and Frédéric Not...

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Inspired to conduct your own research in Antwerp? You can still apply for the Nottebohm Fellowship until 1 October 2026. The fellowship supports researchers working on book history, print culture, heritage collections, conservation, and related fields. More info: sl1nk.com/61p2nr1

consciencebibliotheek.be

Nottebohm Fellowship for Book Historical Research | Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Mitchel Gundrum presents his research on the earliest known European manual on bookbinding (1612). Studied during his Nottebohm Fellowship, this remarkable source offers unique insights into seventeenth-century bookbinding practice and book production. 3/

A portrait of a man wearing a back pack and longer hear in front of trees and a field of flowers

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Elise Watson (University of Edinburgh) explores the interconfessional Dutch clients of the Plantin Press (1579-1723). Her research reveals how sacred books travelled between the Protestant Dutch Republic & the Catholic Southern Netherlands. 2/

Portrait of a woman with bron curly hair wearing glasses in front of a stone building.

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

consciencebibliotheek.be

Online Nottebohm Talks | Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

A glimpse into the sixteenth-century printing office. This 16th-century Bible sheet became a printer’s copy: a gathering from an earlier edition, marked in red by compositors and used as copy for a new setting, placed on the visorium above the type cases. #earlymodern #bookhistory #rarebooks 📚💙📜

First gathering of the edition with the unfolded pages visible, including the title page on the bottom left. The paper sheet contains printed text, red markings, and ink stains.

Detail of the ink stains on the sheet of paper

Details of the red markings added by hand

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Good article indeed, thanks for sharing!

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I’m now inclined to have the frame digitized, catalogue the individual printing sheets as a Sammelband, and let the collage have a conservation treatment to ensure the preservation of the individual pieces within the frame.

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

My main concern is: keeping it intact means preserving it in an external non-accessible storage room.

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

It probably dates back to the 19th-century, so it’s part of the early days of the museum’s history. Display history: shown ever since in the printing press room.

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Good point! It includes 16th-century ordinances and title pages, all gathered from unsold stock material, probably in the early days of the museum, in the 19th century. My main concern is: keeping it intact means preserving it in an external non-accessible storage room.

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

In the permanent exhibition you mean?

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Sounds interesting, do you have the reference?

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

The entire book exhibition, which I am curating, will change too: we will have a room devoted to the different kinds of publications that came off the presses!

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I intended to include “but then again” before “keeping it”

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I truly understand the nostalgia, but do know it is not the last phase of the printing house, but an addition made by the museum staff at some point in time!

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Agree that we would not alter the object as such. Keeping it intact does mean preserving it in an external and not really accessible storage room.

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Raising the questions here, to hear other people’s perspectives before deciding. How do you approach the scrapbooks?

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Should we dismantle the collage, catalogue & preserve the fragments individually, so that they can be identified, studied & made accessible to researchers? Or keep the collage intact, recognising it as a museological object in its own right? /2 #earlymodern #bookhistory #rarebooks

Detail of the different printed sheets pasted on the frame, displaying printed text, red-inked ornaments, copperplate engravings, and music print.

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

A curatorial dilemma from Museum Plantin-Moretus: this large collage of printed fragments from Plantin & Moretus editions, assembled by the museum team a long time ago & displayed for decades in the printing room. The fragments were pasted onto a support, and the effects are visible in the paper. /1

Large wooden frame next to a window in an interior with wooden elements. Reflection of the windows of the opposite wall visible. The frame contains a collage of printed fragments.

View of the frame next to the window and the wooden type cases.

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

At some point, someone looked at this limp parchment binding with a copy of the Index of Prohibited Books and thought: ‘That'll do for my calculations.’ #rarebooks #bookhistory #earlymodern 💙📚📜

Detail of handwritten calculations made on an early modern parchment binding with an early modern hand

Upper cover of the limp parchment binding with straps

Title page of the book reading Index expurgatorius librorum, the imprint reads that it was printed in Antwerp by Christophe Plantin in 1571

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

One last chance to visit! Museum Plantin-Moretus closes temporarily from Monday, 3 August while we prepare a renewed permanent exhibition. Reopening on 5 December 2026. We hope to see you then! ✨ #earlymodern #rarebooks #bookhistory 📜💙📚

Bird’s eye perspective of the great hall with wooden staircases and a tile floor with a star pattern in the middle. Copyright: LUCID

Exterior view of the museum of brick walls with one covered in creeper. Copyright: LUCID

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Always here for these kind of jokes!!

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Closed the books measure about 400 x 272 mm..

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I had always assumed one sheet per skin, and that sheep skins would be too small for a Polyglot folio sheet. /2 Any thoughts or literature references?

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Question for #earlymodern #bookhistory #rarebooks people!📜 Leon Voet claims 16,263 parchment sheets for thirteen copies of Plantin's eight-volume Polyglot bible required about 8,000 sheep to be slaughtered. Does this imply that a single sheep skin yielded two parchment sheets? /1

Engraved title page of the first volume of Plantin's Polyglot bible. It refers to the four biblical languages used in the first four volumes of the Old Testament, framed by a wreath of Mediterranean plants. At the bottom, animals living in peace symbolize an ideal harmony among peoples and under the Christian faith.

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