Plakkaat van Verlatinge

The Act of Abjuration (Dutch: Plakkaat van Verlatinghe or Acte van Verlatinghe) is a official document signed on July 26, 1581, in which several provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands rejected Philip II of Spain as their ruler. It is often regarded as the declaration of independence of the Netherlands. This action followed the Union of Utrecht of 1579. The decision was made on July 22, 1581, when a resolution to that effect was adopted during a regular meeting of the States General of the Netherlands in Antwerp. The text was finalized on July 26, 1581, in The Hague. The actual document was printed by the State Printing House, run by Charles Silvius, in Leiden, and, as customary for legislation, it was circulated immediately.

In 1981, the State Printing House and Publishing Company celebrated its 400th anniversary by publishing a facsimile edition of the Act, based on Silvius’s original edition. Several copies of the original have been preserved in the archives of the Royal Library. The goal was to create a true masterpiece.
Research into the original printing revealed that the paper consisted of rag paper with a high percentage of jute mulch. An artisanal paper factory in Renkum revived an ancient cylinder mold paper machine along with a jute mulching machine to reproduce the paper. It was made in two weights, indistinguishable from the original.
The original pages, some of which were severely affected by time, were carefully restored. The best-preserved copy was photographed, with enlargements printed on paper and retouched by hand, word for word. Deep-etched brass plates were then produced. Several retired printers from the State Printing House were invited to bring an old platen press back into action, and the facsimile was printed with great care and craftsmanship.
Finally, the facsimile was included as a separate component in a book that also contained a treatise on the history of the Placard. The book was hand-bound using the Japanese method at the printer’s in-house school. This binding allowed the facsimile sheets to be included as pages that served as passe-partouts.