ABSTRACT
Clear window glass is amongst the most neglected and underestimated historical building materials. Nevertheless, several studies have already shed light on the complex history of window-glass production. They have shown how its evolution led to different glass types, with different characteristics and significance, and that glazing was not just installed indiscriminately.
Although much insight was gained by studying glaziers’ invoices, these have never been examined systematically over a large period. The glaziers’ invoices in the archives of the Antwerp publishers’ family of Plantin-Moretus give the opportunity to do both. Decoding these invoices from the 16–18th centuries not only holds the promise of more detailed insights into the glass types that existed in the past, albeit in a limited cultural, temporal and regional context; by revealing the differential uses of glass, they allow us to infer the potential cultural and social significances of window glass in urban dwellings.
