(ca. 1397-1468) German printer
A German metalsmith who discovered how to make moveable type, an invention that led to the proliferation of the printing press, a technological device that changed the world.
Johannes Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg was born in Mainz, Germany, around 1397. Despite his fame and significance, there is little surviving information about Gutenberg himself. He was a member of an elite family, Friele zum Gensfleisch, who remained in his birthplace until 1428. That year he moved to Strasbourg, and extant records reveal that he worked with a goldsmith there from 1434 to 1444. He apparently began to work on moveable type sometime in the mid-1430s and had perhaps begun to make letters out of lead by 1438.
By the late 1440s he had returned to Mainz, yet despite what seem (to modern audiences) the obvious benefits of the nascent printing technology, Gutenberg had financial problems that forced him to borrow money to continue his ventures. His debts accumulated, and by the mid-1450s he no longer had the assets to cover them. By that time he had produced his greatest achievement: a version of the Bible printed forty-two lines to the page. Gutenberg Bibles today are among the rarest of incunabula (the term used for books printed before 1500).
At the time of his death in 1468, Gutenberg had developed a working relationship with Adolf of Nassau, archbishop of Mainz. A Latin dictionary originally written in the 13th century and printed in Mainz in 1460 was quite possibly the work of Gutenberg, although no definite proof of his work on the volume survives. After his death the archbishop gave a local lawyer named Conrad Humery the printing press that was Gutenberg’s, perhaps a final sign that the inventor of moveable type never escaped financial woes. The people of Mainz, for their part, eventually celebrated Gutenberg’s achievements. On the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press, the city put on a three-day festival that included the appearance of a new statue, boat races, an artillery salute, and even processions lit by torchlight.
Further reading: Warren Chappell, A Short History of the Printed Word (New York: Knopf, 1970); Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
World History
