The Book of Gold was originally inspired by a very special book, The Biblia Regia, or King’s Bible, also known as the Antwerp or Plantin Polyglot. While researching this Bible for my day job as a librarian, I fell in love with the city and time of its origin, with 16th-century Antwerp and the world of Christophe Plantin, the master-printer who created it. When I had the opportunity to visit Antwerp and the incredible Plantin-Moretus Museum there, I jumped at it. So here are some of the places in Antwerp that I used as the basis of Amberes, and Lyta and Kit’s world.
Antwerp in the 1560s was the commercial hub of Europe. Trade flowed in and out of the city and it was said that so long as it didn’t interrupt trade, you could do whatever you wanted there. However, religious tensions were high. Antwerp was part of the Spanish Netherlands, ruled by Phillip II, but also falling increasingly under the influence of the Calvinist north. It was also a centre of art and most of all, printing. It could be incredibly violent and restless, caught between religions old and new, and inundated with new ideas and people from all around the world.
Old Steen
The prison of Old Steen where Kit is imprisoned was inspired by Het Steen, the remains of the gatehouse to the much larger castle which was demolished in the 19th century. Het Steen is Antwerp’s oldest building and was part of the original fortifications, and the name means “The Stone”. It has been used as the city hall, the courts of justice, a museum and a prison. It currently houses the tourist information office. We also visited the fortress of Gravensteen in Ghent which gave an idea of what Het Steen might have been like in its hey-day.
Old Steen Prison was a hulking grey block of a building right on the river, wedged in the city walls, with a turreted gatehouse and iron bars as thick as young oaks covering every miserable window. It took Lyta far too long to get there, even though she ran all the way, heedless of anything and anyone in her path. It had been a fortress once, hundreds of years before, foreign armies breaking themselves on its defences, and it retained that reputation for blood and death.
Larch Lane, and the Rookery
Lyta lives in Larch Lane, deep in an area of Amberes known as The Rookery. It’s one of the oldest parts of her city, a warren of narrow lanes and jumbled buildings built up on top of each other. It’s based on the Vlaeykensgang, a narrow laneway running from Oud Koornmarkt and Hoogstraat, which can be tricky to find, and feels like stepping back in time, if not into another world entirely. It has some lovely restaurants these days, and is really atmospheric at night. The Vlaeykensgang also forms the basis for the location of Haldevar’s shop.
Frida turned away from the market and Lyta followed her, down the labyrinthine lanes of the city, their feet finding their way unerringly where others would fear to tread. They were known here.
This was their world.
Haldevar’s shop was hard to miss, so stooped that its gable almost kissed the house opposite. The front was shabby and in need of repair, but so were half of the buildings in this part of town. A tiny bell rang above their heads as they entered and Frida closed the door behind them.
The Rose Palace
Antwerp is famous for its Exchange, of which there are actually two – old and new.
For Amberes I kept the old one and turned the new one into the Rose Palace, a confection of a place which combines Royal apartments and civic offices much in the same way the Doges Palace did in Venice. Kit’s trial is held there, and it’s where Lyta first meets the King and is reunited with Sylvian. It is a busy, jostling place, full of unrest, which had been imposed on the city as a place of authority and judgement.
The Rose Palace was a confection of a building, the intricate façade soaring to the sky, the stone carved with lifelike flowers and vines. Its gutters dripped gargoyles shaped like fantastical creatures of legends, and the turrets were topped with golden spires. The windows glowed with more stained glass than a temple. It couldn’t have looked more out of place in Amberes if it tried.
Kit’s Printshop
Kit’s printshop is based on that of Christophe Plantin, now the incredible Plantin-Moretus museum, the only museum in the world to be recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and a remarkable snapship of the early days of western printing. I cannot recommend visiting the museum highly enough and I think I was positively vibrating with joy the first time I got there (yes I am that much of a nerd). It is found in the Vrijdagmarkt, in the same buildings where Plantin lived and worked with his wife and five daughters over 400 years ago. It contains two of his original printing presses, the oldest extant in the world, with six others still in working order. I even got to operate a replica (they weren’t mad enough to let me near the originals) and the resulting print of one of Plantin’s poems hangs framed on the wall of my house. The wealth of history and knowledge which lingers in this incredible place is palpable as you walk around.
Here’s me, nerding out with the printing presses. No seriously, I fangirled in a deeply embarrassing way. I have so many photos that it’s ridiculous and I could fill this whole page with them all.
The wooden frames of the printing presses – only two of them for now, but one day he would expand and there would be more – were oak, great beams of it taller than he was, bolted to the floor and the ceiling, so they wouldn’t move. Each stood like a door frame with a press mounted in it, over a tray in which the galleys would be set. Little metal letters on the moveable type squares could be arranged in any way imaginable, and he had collected a large number of different typefaces. He even had new ones being made right now. When he had decided on the text, he set the type in order in galleys, rearranging them until they were perfect. He agonised over it. The right words, the right font, the right layout. Everything told a story.
When the galley was complete, it was inked, the paper was placed over it and the press lowered by a lever which turned a huge wooden screw. It worked just like a press for wine or oil, pushing the paper to his studiously arranged and inked galleys, creating the pages. Then another sheet of paper, then another. They printed multiple pages onto each sheet so they could be folded into quires, ready to be sewn together and bound. Each copy as crisp and fresh and identical as the last. He made sure of that. The finest paper, the best quality ink, all the care and dedication that led to their reputation for craftsmanship, as one of the best in Amberes and far beyond. People from all over the world sought out his books. Typis Cornellis meant something. It stood for something. Something good.
(ok I snuck in one more photo of the printing presses, couldn’t resist!)
The Book of Gold
And finally we come to The Book of Gold itself. The Biblia Regia, also known as the Antwerp Polyglot, or the Plantin Polyglot printed by Christophe Plantin in Antwerp between 1568 and 1573. It’s a magnificent work of eight volumes, with the complete Bible printed in five concurrent languages and additional volumes containing dictionaries, maps and historical guides compiled by the scholar Benito Arias Montano who Philip sent to oversee the undertaking. Only 1,200 copies were printed on paper, and 12 on parchment. The story of its production is even more amazing than the odds of its survival.
Plantin had been accused of printing Calvinist pamphlets and begged Philip II to let him prove his loyalty by creating the greatest Bible in the world. The story of that bible involves bribery, corruption, shipwrecks (at least two), a paper shortage, a lifelong friendship between the printer and the scholar (yes, I shamelessly stole their names) and even charges of heresy in front of both the Roman and the Spanish inquisition. But everyone survived, I promise. I can actually talk about this story alone for hours.
The Plantin Polyglot is a truly beautiful set of books, and a treasure of the print world and it is a wonder that it ever got printed in the first place, let alone survived. Thankfully Kit’s version is much simpler and didn’t take the same years of work and toil, although ultimately, it is far more dangerous.
Two volumes, bound in goatskin stained blue, onto which Jem had insisted on tooling a design of leaves and flowers inlaid with gold, sat on the workbench. The two men looked at them as if they might bite at any moment. Kit had sent everyone else home as soon as he came down with the manuscript, but Jem had just given him one of those looks and ignored his orders. As usual.
‘You finished them quickly,’ Kit said.
‘You seemed in a hurry. It’s a simple enough binding, just wrapped around the block and stitched on the spine. I more or less had them finished anyway for those pretty drawing books Countess Ursel wanted bound for her children. They were the same size.’
Kit hardly dared touch them if he was honest. He had that feeling again, that creeping sense of something coming off the books, something demanding to be read, something that would swallow him up if he let it.
If you’re interested in learning more about Antwerp at this time I recommend reading Antwerp by Michael Pye (Allen Lane, 2021) The Golden Compasses: The history of the House of Plantin-Moretus by Leon Voet (Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1969-1972) and Christopher Plantin by Colin Clair (Cassell, 1960). Yes, a librarian will always recommend more books.
The Plantin-Moretus museum website is https://museumplantinmoretus.be/en/plantins-house
I really hope you’ve enjoyed these glimpses of the inspirations behind Amberes and The Book of Gold, and that you enjoy Lyta, Sylvian, Kit and Ben’s adventures in the magnificent Goldsboro edition.
(All photos are the author’s own.)
