Printing in the Netherlands

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SINTE BERNARDUS SOUTER TOT ONSER LIEVER VROUWEN MARIA. Antwerp: Gerard Leeu, 8 October 1491. (Prothro B-115)

Circumstantial evidence suggests that printing had been introduced in the northern Netherlands by c. 1463. By the mid-1470s, presses had arrived in the wealthy Flemish cities of the southern Netherlands, as well. Combined, the two regions produced more than two thousand editions during the fifteenth century. This section of the exhibition includes the first book printed in Delft, the first edition of the Old Testament in Dutch, and two rarities printed in the Flemish towns of Louvain and Antwerp in present-day Belgium.

Printing in the Netherlands