Dirk Martens

Dirk Martens (Aalst, 1446 or 1447 - presumably there, May 2, 1534) was a Flemish printer and publisher. He was the son of a family of townsmen.
Young Dirk received basic education from the Wilhelmites in Aalst and later moved to Venice. There he stayed with Gerardus de Lisa, a humanist and compatriot of Dirk. In 1473, he returned to Aalst to start a printing workshop. Three works were published, one of which is the book "On the Two Lovers" by Enea Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II. The book "Speculum conversionis peccatorum" or "A Mirror of the Conversion of Sinners."
Until 1486, every trace of Martens disappears. The only clue we find is a certain Teodorico Aleman, who dealt in book imports and was consistently identified with Martens. In 1486, he opened a second workshop in Aalst that specialized in printing breviaries, a genre that places high technical demands.
From 1492 to 1529, he established new workshops in Antwerp and Leuven. In 1529, Martens stopped printing. Five years later, he died in the convent of the Aalst Wilhelmites on May 2, 1534.
Dirk Martens had four children, all of whom died during his lifetime. His daughter Barbara was married to Servaes van Sassen from Diest. Sassen took over Martens' printing business in 1529.
Dirk Martens was a humanist who, after 25 years of experimentation, printed the first Greek text to appear in the Low Countries. He published many important texts, such as a Latin-Dutch dictionary and Columbus' first letter about the discovery of the New World. He published many well-known works by numerous humanists, including those of the young Erasmus and Thomas More (Utopia, 1516). They remained friends for the rest of their lives.
Dirk Martens aimed to bring affordable editions to the market for the students of Leuven. He mentioned this in the preface to his Greek edition of Aristophanes' Plutus in Leuven. This made him very popular among the Leuven students. He felt it was important for as many people as possible to be able to read books, as until then, books had only been for the wealthy.
Dirk Martens actually benefitted from the flourishing of the University of Leuven. He advertised his printing house to them. He states in a sort of advertisement: "We do our utmost to impart knowledge and civilization to you by ensuring that books reach you from this workshop, which contain as few errors as possible..."
During the conquest of Aalst by the Geuzen, 50 years after Martens' death, his entire archive went up in flames. In 2004, the Royal Library managed to purchase one of Martens' first prints, the "Praedicamenta" of Aristotle, at an auction in London for just under 100,000 euros.

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