Gutenberg

Early life and years as a goldsmith

His real name was Johannes Gensfleisch; Gutenberg is a byname taken from his mother's family. He was born into a patrician family in Mainz. His exact year of birth is unknown; it is estimated at between 1394 and 1406, working back from a document showing that he had come of age by 1420, and for convenience it is often given as around 1400.

He originally trained as a goldsmith, and it was here that he acquired his technical grounding in metalworking. Around 1428 a conflict broke out in Mainz between the craft guilds and the patrician class, and Gutenberg's family was driven out of the city. He then moved to Strassburg (now Strasbourg), where he is thought to have begun experimenting with printing in the late 1430s.

Perfecting letterpress printing

Gutenberg's technical contribution lies less in inventing the individual elements than in integrating them into a practical system. Specifically, he established a sequence of steps: cutting the letterform (the punch) in steel, striking it into a copper matrix, and pouring an alloy of lead, tin and antimony into the matrix to cast type. Because this alloy has a low melting point and is hard once cooled, identical type could be produced in large quantities and of uniform quality. To this he added an oil-based ink that would adhere to metal type and a press converted from a wine press.

Around 1450 he returned to Mainz and, with funding from the businessman Johann Fust, began printing in earnest. The work completed under this partnership was the Forty-two-line Bible, commonly called the Gutenberg Bible. Printing is said to have been finished around 1455, and the name comes from the 42 lines on each page. It was the first major book produced in Europe by letterpress, and the roughly 49 surviving copies^※1 are held by libraries and museums around the world.

The lawsuit with Fust and later years

The relationship with Fust, however, broke down. Around 1455 Fust sued Gutenberg for repayment of his investment and won. Gutenberg had to hand over his printing equipment to Fust, and from then on Fust and his son-in-law Peter Schöffer carried on the printing business.

Gutenberg is thought to have continued printing on a small scale afterward, but detailed records are scarce. In 1462 the city was ravaged by an armed conflict over the archbishopric of Mainz, and Gutenberg too suffered losses. In his last years Adolf von Nassau, Archbishop of Mainz, granted him the title of court servant and a pension, and he died in Mainz on February 3, 1468^※2.

Influence

Letterpress printing spread rapidly. Within a few decades of Gutenberg's death, printing shops had been set up across Europe, and by the end of the 15th century an estimated 20 million or more printed items are said to have been produced^※3. The price of books fell, the literate population grew, and it was thanks to printing that Martin Luther's Reformation writings circulated widely. Gutenberg's letterpress printing is counted, along with gunpowder and the compass, among the three great inventions of the Renaissance.