Musée de l'imprimerie Malesherbes

To show your children that there was a world long before text messages and emojis and that Gutenberg’s 26 lead figures gave men the opportunity to dream, love, share and express their feelings, then head for Malesherbes and its workshop-museum of printing !

Printing has been a tradition of north Loiret since the Age of Enlightenment when the great names in publishing chose to settle there. So Malesherbes was chosen by printer Jean-Paul Maury in collaboration with the ARTEGRAF association as the site of this unique museum in Europe devoted to the history of printing skills up to the present day. 

How it all began

This is the story of a little boy from Aveyron, the son of a printer whose firm had been handed down from father to son since 1850. It’s the story of a man who became an important figure in the world of printing. It’s the story of a wild dream and the fierce determination of Jean-Paul Maury and his wife, Chantal to create the largest printing museum in Europe. Today the dream has become reality in Malesherbes, next to the Maury printworks, of course.  Jean-Paul Maury wanted the museum to be a lively place, with visitors at the heart of the project. Here you can discover an impressive collection of printing machines including a replica of the wooden Gutenberg press, you can see them in action and it’s YOU who operates some of them !

So, roll up your sleeves and imagine plunging your hands into a vat of murky water full of little bits and finishing up with a sheet of paper !

It’s not magic, just one of the fun workshops visitors can take part in ! Calligraphy, illumination, paper making, inlaying, book binding and restoration workshops are regularly held so visitors can understand what printing entails. Not forgetting modern techniques of printing on concrete, metal, wood and fabric. Because knowing where we’ve come from allows us to know where we’re going. And the aim of every good printer is to make his mark, isn’t it ?