The Plantin-Moretus press, begun in Antwerp in 1555 by Christopher Plantin, has perhaps the finest archive in Europe of a press specialising in the publication of religious books. The authors have thoroughly researched its account books to ascertain the number and types of illustrated works published and the difficulties involved. Their principal aim is to demonstrate how Plantin, through the coincidence of favourable conditions and his own business acumen, sponsored a revolution in book design by discarding woodcut and developing instead intaglio illustrations which were combined with printed text. Plantin's first published work combining engravings and text, an anatomical treatise, appeared in 1566, but engravings of religious subjects became common between 1569 and 1575, following the Council of Trent's decrees ordering the revision of liturgical books. Plantin realised that his high-risk investment in engravings would capture for him the lucrative Spanish market. His polyglot Bible, patronised by Philip ii, was published between 1568 and 1573 with help from John Clement, the English refugee, and served as a model for Thomas Roycroft's polyglot Bible published 1655–7. Plantin's English contacts are of particular interest. They included the exile Alan Cope to whom he sent free copies, and publishers like John Fowler of Leuven, Claude de Marne of Frankfurt and, especially, Adriaen Huberti of Antwerp who published the engravings of the Catholic exile Richard Verstegan. Curiously, seven copies of Plantin's Horae were bought by Nicholas Jude [?Judde] in Protestant London in the early 1570s. Douai, where English Catholic refugees were numerous, provided an important outlet for Plantin's books. From the 1580s, and especially when he was exiled in Leiden between 1583 and 1585, Plantin favoured etchings rather than engravings since they were cheaper, more quickly produced and might yield up to three thousand impressions after reworking, compared with the thousand engraved impressions run off a copper plate. But Plantin always preferred engravings to etchings in his religious books. At his death in 1589 his press was one of the largest in Europe, and he ensured the continued production of book illustrations through his business relationships with distinguished local printworkshops. The book concludes with some useful appendices on engravers, cost assessments, sales and stock inventories of plates.