Person1468

Johannes Gutenberg

Also called: Gutenberg

Metalworker of Mainz in Germany who developed printing with movable metal type and a press, producing the 42-line Bible

Born to a patrician family of Mainz around 1400 (the year is uncertain), he lived for a time in Strasbourg because of political strife and experimented with printing there. Back in Mainz he borrowed heavily from the merchant Fust to print the Bible, but in 1455 lost a lawsuit over the debt and had to hand over much of his workshop and equipment. In his last years he lived on a pension from the archbishop of Mainz. Not a single printed work bearing his name survives.

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1450Gutenberg’s Printing Presscreator
Around 1450 Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz developed a way to print books in quantity with movable metal type and a press, producing the 42-line Bible. Printing carried the Renaissance and the Reformation across Europe.

Themes this person appears in

Late Medieval Europe and the Renaissance1077 – 1517
From Canossa to the eve of the Reformation — papal power at its height and in decline, towns and parliaments, royal power growing through the Hundred Years’ War and the Black Death, and the Renaissance and printing