Johannes Gutenberg

Biography

Its formation

Johannes Gutenberg, born around 1400 (its birth date cannot be established precisely), is the third child resulting from an easy family, that of Friele Gensfleisch zur Laden.

The places of stay and the activities of Gutenberg, are not known between 1400 and 1420. Compared to its later activities and social status of its family, academic works are probable.

Between 1434 and 1444, the Gutenberg family settles with Strasbourg, Jean Gutenberg makes her training to become Orfèvre. It is formed in particular with the Ciselure and the control of the alloys, which will constitute the bases of its future trade, enabling him to conceive resistant and reproducible block letters ad infinitum.

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One finds his trace in the registers of the city until in 1444. There exists nothing over the four following years.

Of return to Mainz in 1448, it continues work started has Strasbourg and borrows money from his/her brother-in-law Arnold Gelthus to build a press.

Invention of typographical printing works

In 1444, it persuades the rich person goldsmith Johann Fust to help it to finance its project. Fust lends 800 guilders - considerable nap for the time to Gutenberg and 300 guilders per annum for the overheads. It becomes in fact its associate.

As a businessman warned, Fust writes a particularly constraining contract for Gutenberg. In guarantee of mortgage, Gutenberg will have to engage its press and the tools and will regulate 6% of interest the year. Fust will show magnanime and will not claim the interests to him, at least initially…

To hope for sufficient incomes, Fust and Gutenberg must choose to print a book whose pulling will make it possible to cover the committed sums. At the time, the only book capable of an immediate success is the Bible in its version in Latin of Saint Jerome, the Biblia Latina . The idea first of Gutenberg to impose its invention will be to imitate the handwritten books perfectly (Codex). But to date one did not find the model precise of Bible used by Gutenberg.

It is at that time that Gutenberg improves:

technique of production of the characters out of metal exchangeable and equal (alloy of lead, iron, tin and antimony) using cut steel stamps, of the matrices of copper and an instrument to run
the press with arm,
the ink of impression (at the time the ink used by the copyist was containing water)

First impressions

The new tools developped at the point by Gutenberg and its workmen, are initially used to him to print small documents, poems, the Latin grammar of Donat, letters of Indulgence for the Church, etc The letters of indulgence to 31 lines (of which more the hurdy-gurdy, dated October 22nd, 1454, is the first specimen of a work of printing works coming from Mainz) and the small known works (“Splits up vom Weltgericht”, “Turkish Calendar” of 1455 - under press little before Christmas 1454, “astronomical Calendar”, etc) have seems it produced by an apprentice of Gutenberg.

1454, the development of the press takes more time than envisaged, the expenses run and the advance of Fust is not enough any more to finance the company. Fust advances 800 more guilders to continue the impression of the bibles on Vélin and, undoubtedly by economy, on paper.

Impression of the B42 Bible

Gutenberg and its workmen whose Pierre Schoeffer prints the Bible in 641 Feuillet S divided into 66 Cahier S.

Composed starting from the Vulgate of Holy Jerome, the Bible of Gutenberg is regarded as the most technical work and most esthetic of the printing works of Gutenberg. Each page, presented like a manuscript page and composed of Gothic characters textured , is divided into two columns of 42 lines each one. Completed in summer 1456, the “Bible with 42 lines” was printed with approximately 180 specimens. 48 of them are preserved and 12 are printed on Parchemin.

The lawsuit and ruin

Unfortunately for Gutenberg, the impression of the books is a mitigated success. In the inventory of Gutenberg, the bibles will remain in shelf some time.

Fust, which has invests more than 2000 guilders in the company, is furious against Gutenberg which had promised a fast success to him. Gutenberg refusing to pay - or not being able it the interests and the capital that it had lent to him, it decides to carry the business in justice. The court slices in favor of Fust, by recognizing however that it was not of a loan but about an investment, and that Fust was not associated lender but.

Fust then obtained the management of the workshop and the press pawned. It continued the company of printing works under its own name. In the oldest edition of the Psalmorum Codex , appeared for the first time the August 14th 1457, only the names of Fust and Schoeffer are mentioned. This book, remarkable by its quality of impression, its text printed in black and red, the regularity of the cast iron of the characters, decorated with made in filigree decorated reference letters, then brings a certain notoriety to the two men. To widen their customers and to exceed the small circle of the cultivated middle-class men and the academics, Fust and Schoeffer quickly direct their production towards editions of less width but easier to sell. They settle in Paris in 1463, at a date where printing works does not exist yet in France. Fust will not benefit from it a long time: he dies in Paris in 1466. But it will have all the same time to see to settle a quantity of printers of Germanic origin street Saint Jacques. These newcomers will launch printing works to Paris, which will produce then the first Incunable S in France in 1472.

The Gutenberg gentleman

Insolvent, Gutenberg tries to start again a workshop of printing works and takes part in 1459 in an edition of the Bible in the town of Bamberg. Its work not carrying neither date nor name, it is still difficult to identify with certainty the documents coming from its workshop. It is possible that the dictionary Catholicon of 744 pages, printed with 300 specimens in Mainz in 1460, is of its composition.

In January 1465, Gutenberg was named gentleman near the archbishop of Mainz Adolphe II of Nassau. It profited then from a revenue and various advantages in kind. He died in 1468, largely ignored by his contemporaries, and was buried in Mainz in a cemetery which will be destroyed later. Its tomb is perdue.
today

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Chronology

1395-1405 Birth of Johannes Gensfleisch, known as Gutenberg,
1434 The first work on the impression with Strasbourg
1436 Lawsuit in Strasbourg
1444-1448 Four years without documents, where is it, which does make?
1448 Return to Mainz
1449-1450 Association of Gutenberg and Johann Fust
1451 Impression of a Latin grammar Donat,
1452-1454 First book printed in series: the Bible with 42 lines,
1454 Impression of a calendar: Turkenkalender,
1455 Lawsuit of Fust against Gutenberg, Pierre Schoeffer compared as witness for the prosecution,
1457 Impression of the first book color by Fust and Schoeffer, the Psalmorum Codex
1465 Gutenberg was named Gentilhomme near the archbishop of Mainz Adolphe II of Nassau,
1468 February 3rd, Gutenberg bequeaths its invention to humanity.

Gutenberg and the invention of printing works

Associated with Johann Fust and Pierre Schoeffer, Johannes Gutenberg is the inventor of printing works in mobile matters in Europe . Contrary to an generally accepted idea, Gutenberg did not invent the Imprimerie, which was known well before its birth in Asia, and he is not more the pioneer of printing works in mobile matters, which he however probably “reinvented” in Europe by improving or improving the processes of already known impression and reproduction of the time, as the press Xylographie actuated with the hand to print for example the charts to be played.
Indeed, the technique of impression with isolated characters is attested before him in China (xylography) and Korea (metallography).

Gutenberg is in the beginning many innovations to arrive to its ends:

a Alloy containing tin, of Bismuth and Antimony which with the characteristic to melt easily and not to become deformed while cooling;
a mould to be melted with the hand with a matrix into negative of the character;
the breakage of composition;
improvement of the existing press of printer - xylographic press -,
a very strong Ink like glue, which " poche" not on the sheet.

For a long time, the history disputes in Johannes Gutenberg the invention of typographical printing works and this one nothing made forever to make sure paternity of its invention. No date of impression nor of signature on the books. The first Colophon appears with the impressions of Johann Fust and Pierre Schoeffer.

However, since 1472, Guillaume Peg, librarian with the Sorbonne, written in Latin in a letter united with the edition Princeps “Of spelled of Gasparino Barzizza” that Latin Joannem Benemontano of Johannes Gutenberg is the first to have printed a book worthy of this name in reference to the handwritten books of the time, the Codex. Guillaume Fichet, who very largely contributed to the installation of printing works in France, using the former students of Jean Gutenberg, Ulrich Gering, Martin Grantz and Michel Friburger, had learned by them the name from their Master.

In 1504, professor Ivo Wittig of Mainz dedication a book with Gutenberg, qualified of inventor of the Typography.

At the 19th century, Ambroise Firmin-Didot, fervent supporter of Gutenberg, found several letters, whose oldest, gone back to 1499, the paternity of the invention with Jean Gutenberg.
attests clearly

February 3rd, 1468, Gutenberg bequeaths its invention to humanity.

Contemporaries of Gutenberg

Historical context

With the the Middle Ages, the books are produced or reproduced by Copiste S. the illustrations are carried out by miniaturists (or Enlumineur S).

In certain cases, the laic ones could produce Codex with the approval of the monasteries. But the texts were spread little and few people could read. As from the 14th century, the process of Xylographie made it possible to reproduce a text with large scales: it consisted in engraving a document with back on wood, then to apply it, once covered with ink, to paper.

According to the legend, it is by seeing functioning a Pressoir with wine with Strasbourg, that Gutenberg had the idea to invent a new process of impression which made it possible to produce 180 Bibles in the three years space, whereas a monk recopied a Bible in same time.

While imagining the mobility of the characters and while improving their longevity thanks to their metal consistency, Gutenberg made the characters reusable and interchangeable. This innovation caused a Cultural revolution: the book is made public, in the commercial and university cities, and the workshops of printing works multiply, increasing the production of the books. This revolution extends to all the Europe, mainly in Italy and with the Netherlands

Thanks to this cultural explosion, the knowledge is not reserved any more for the Clerc S. the more easy access to knowledge develops the division of the ideas, the critical spirit and with him the Humanisme.

From Mainz in whole Europe

With died of Gutenberg in February 1468, the various collaborators of the printer already left Mainz for a long time.

France

1470-1472 Impression of the Incunable first in France in the buildings of the Sorbonne in Paris.
1537 François 1st founds the obligation of registration of copyright. Officially to defend the statute of the booksellers
1546 Etienne Dolet printer-bookseller is tortured, strangled and burned with its books in Paris, Maubert places.

Italy

Lawsuits

lawsuit in Strasbourg about 1436. It leaves ruined Strasbourg, but doubtless with the tools for impression which it developed.
lawsuit in Mainz in 1455, against its associate Johann Fust. Gutenberg lost the lawsuit and was ruined. It lost for the benefit of Fust its printing works which it had given in guarantee for its debt.

Quotation

“God suffers because a great multitude cannot be reached by the crowned word. The truth is captive in a small number of manuscripts which contain treasures. Let us break the seal which binds them, give wings to the truth, which it is not handwritten any more with high expenses by hands which are tired, but that they fly multiplied by an untiring machine and that they reach all the men. ” (1455)

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