The first books in the world printed from movable metal type, whose European appearance is credited to Johannes Gutenberg in about 1450, are today relatively rare and valuable, either because of their intrinsic or extrinsic characteristics. Sheer chronological age and artisanship add value, as do the historical importance of the work and its content. Printed books are sometimes regarded almost like a museum object, appreciated for their beauty alone. The research aims to show that these books are the heritage of libraries but also of museums. Through literature related to historic houses museums the case of the Plantin-Moretus Museum, created in 1555, will be portrayed. Plantin-Moretus, founded as a public institution in the nineteenth century, is generally regarded as the most important museum of European typography in the world. Several rooms have been preserved exactly as they were in the seventeenth century, including presses dating from 1600, and the museum houses archival documentation unmatched worldwide. In this piece I also take up the question, among others, of authenticity versus representation in historical museum exhibitions. In the history of business or manufacturing, one typically finds a representation of the past rather than its preservation. Old factories get torn down and their machines and other contents destroyed. But thanks to the practices of the Plantin-Moretus family and the commitment of the city of Antwerp, we have in this museum actual continuity from the past, with unchanged space. In this universe, a patrimony of rare books is in an ideal home, not in a library, as might be expected, but in a museum context where the objects remain in the same location in which they were born
