On July 1, 1589, this "giant among printers" breathed his last, and was buried in the ambulatory of the cathedral, his friend Justus Lipsius writing the inscription for his tombstone. While his name is not associated with the earliest beginnings of the art of printing, and the products of his press do not therefore command the almost fabulous prices paid for the rarest productions of some of the first printers, Christopher Plantin was not only the greatest printer of his age, but one of the greatest in the history of the art. Almost from the first he knew how to gather about him the foremost scholars and artists of his time, making his establishment not merely a printing-office but an institution of learning, a home of the fine arts. Arias Montanus, editor of the _Biblia Regia_, aided by a host of the most learned churchmen of Europe; Justus Lipsius, lecturer before Princes at the Universities of Leyden and Louvain; Mercator and Ortelius, the geographers, from whom the world learned the right way to make maps and atlases; Crispin, Van den Broeck, Martin de Vos, and a score of the foremost Flemish artists, who were employed by Plantin to illustrate his books; these and many more no doubt were frequent visitors at the printing-house during the lifetime of its founder. These noble traditions were fully maintained under his successors. Jean Moretus I ruled over the destinies of the house until his death, in 1610, leaving it to his two sons, Jean II and Balthazar I. The latter was the greatest of the dynasty of printers after Plantin and Jean Moretus I. He was a warm friend of Rubens, who illustrated many of the publications of the house during this period. In the fourth generation, represented by Balthazar III, who ruled for half a century, from 1646 to 1696, the family was ennobled, but after this period the house confined its output and commerce to missals and breviaries, under the monopoly granted by Philip II for the countries under the rule of Spain. This business was completely destroyed by an edict prohibiting the importation of foreign books into the Spanish dominions, and in 1800 the printing office ceased operations. It resumed activity on a small scale once or twice during the nineteenth century, but finally closed in 1867, after an existence of three hundred and twelve years, and in 1876 the last representative of the house, Edouard Moretus, sold the entire establishment, with all its priceless collections and furnishings, to the City of Antwerp for the sum of 1,200,000 francs, to be maintained as a museum.