Editing Pieter Bruegel the Elder (section)

===Antwerp and Brussels===
From 1555 until 1563, Bruegel lived in Antwerp, then the publishing centre of northern Europe, mainly working as a designer of over forty prints for Cock, though his dated paintings begin in 1557.<ref>Orenstein, 7</ref>  With one exception, Bruegel did not work the plates himself, but produced a drawing which Cock's specialists worked from. From 1559, he dropped the 'h' from his name and signed his paintings as ''Bruegel''; his relatives continued to use "Brueghel" or "Breughel". He moved in the lively [[Renaissance humanism|humanist]] circles of the city, and his change of name (or at least its spelling) in 1559 can be seen as an attempt to Latinise it; at the same time he changed the script he signed in from the Gothic [[blackletter]] to Roman capitals.<ref name="auto4"/>

In 1563, he married Pieter Coecke van Aelst's daughter [[Mayken Coecke]] in [[Brussels]], where he lived for the remainder of his short life. Antwerp was the capital of Netherlandish commerce and the art market;<ref>Wied, 9–10</ref> Brussels was the centre of government. Van Mander tells a story that his mother-in-law pushed for the move to distance him from his established servant girl mistress.<ref>Van Mander, quoted in Wied, 16; Orenstein, 7; Hagens, 15</ref>  By now painting had become his main activity, and his most famous works come from these years. His paintings were much sought after, with patrons including wealthy Flemish collectors and [[Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle|Cardinal Granvelle]], in effect the [[Habsburg]] chief minister, who was based in Mechelen. Bruegel had two sons, both well known as painters, and a daughter about whom nothing is known. These were [[Pieter Brueghel the Younger]] (1564–1638) and [[Jan Brueghel the Elder]] (1568–1625); he died too early to train either of them. He died in Brussels on 9 September 1569 and was buried in the [[Kapellekerk]].<ref>Grove; Orenstein, 8–9</ref>

Van Mander records that before he died he told his wife to burn some drawings, perhaps designs for prints, carrying inscriptions "which were too sharp or sarcastic ... either out of remorse or for fear that she might come to harm or in some way be held responsible for them", which has led to much speculation that they were politically or doctrinally provocative, in a climate of sharp tension in these areas.<ref name="auto4"/>