Gutenberg printing press year of invention. The creator of printing Johannes Gutenberg: biography, books and interesting facts

Board printing spread to Europe at the end of the 14th century. In Germany, Italy, Flanders, paper money, playing cards and religious pictures were printed in this way. At first there was no text on them, it fit in by hand, then pictures with printed text appeared. Woodcut (that is, from the board) printed books appeared around 1450. The technique of printing from the boards resembled Chinese technology in all respects. One side of the sheet remained clean.

Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of European typography, was also at first engaged in printing from boards. But this way of producing books was not adapted to European alphabets. And Guttenberg had an idea: to type text from individual letters. Implementing it, however, proved to be a difficult task and took ten years of hard work. the main problem was that it was difficult to make letters in large quantities, without cutting each separately. In other words, it was necessary to come up with a way to mass-produce letters. The method eventually found by Gutenberg involved abandoning wooden letters and casting them from metal.

He did it in the following way. First, he prepared convex images of letters, cutting them out on iron bars. Then he attached this image to a copper bar and hit the letter with a hammer. As a result, a concave letter image was imprinted on copper. Such an image in printing is called a matrix. Guttenberg poured molten lead into it, and when the metal solidified, he took out a block with a convex image of a letter from the matrix. It was mirrored. Lead bars with a letter imprinted on them are called letters. One letter can be used to make thousands of identical letters - just as a letter carved on iron made it possible to make many identical matrices.

The mass production of the metal type from which the set was composed - this is the meaning of Gutenberg's invention of printing. Next, we had to come up with a way to put the letters in a row so that we get an even line, and at the same time make up a page from the lines. For this, Johann invented a simple device- he used a metal plate with three sides, two of which were fixed, and the third could move. Such a device was called a workbench. The typesetter, in accordance with the text of the typed book, laid one letter after another in the right order; the sides did not allow them to crumble. When the page was typed, the board was fixed. The result was a framed page; it was called the printing form. The form was covered with special paint and a sheet of paper was pressed against it. The result is an impression of the set - printed text.

First printing press

In addition to the method of making letters and typing, Johannes Gutenberg created a printing press. He adapted for printing a manual press, used for squeezing grape juice. The printing press consisted of a bottom board, on which a set covered with paint was fixed in a frame, and an upper board, which was lowered with a screw. The top board tightly pressed a sheet of paper to the set - and a clear print was obtained. Thus, Gutenberg developed and created the whole printing process- from casting metal letters to the production of a finished book.

All the preparatory work - the manufacture of the first sets of fonts and the construction of the machine - required a lot of money. Guttenberg did not have them, and he had to enter into a deal with the wealthy merchant Fust. The condition was this: they share the profit from the invention in half. But Fust had an appetite, more - he wanted to take over the entire printing house. And he put forward an additional condition: the money he gives for the creation of the printing house is considered Gutenberg's debt. If he does not return it on time, then the printing house becomes the property of Fust.

Business at Guttenberg immediately went well. The books were printed and sold well at first. Guttenberg took an assistant and made an excellent master out of him. The inventor spent all his share of the profit on casting new types and building printing presses; Fust put his share in his pocket. And when Gutenberg ran out of money, Fust began to demand a debt from him, filed a lawsuit and won his claim.

Guttenberg, starving, began to reprint books, while getting into debt. Creditors threatened to sue, and everything could have ended sadly, if not for a circumstance so typical of our time: the printed word for the first time showed its power in the political struggle.

In the city of Mainz, where Guttenberg lived, two archbishops, two higher clerics, were at enmity with each other. And I must say that they also possessed enormous civil power - they did what they wanted, each had his own army. Gutenberg took the side of one of them - he began to print sheets in his support, trying to attract the population of the city to his side. And Fust fought for another priest. As a result, the first archbishop won. Gutenberg's contribution to this victory was "highly" appreciated: every year he could receive a free new dress, two hundred measures of grain and two cartloads of wine, as well as permission to receive dinner from the archbishop's table.

Gutenberg's first book

The first full-length book printed by Gutenberg was the so-called 42-line Bible, which consisted of two volumes of 1286 pages. Considered a masterpiece of early printing, this book imitated Gothic medieval handwritten books. The colored initials (capital letters) and the ornament were made by the artists by hand.

By 1500 printing had penetrated 12 European countries. In the 60 years that have passed since the beginning of the application of the new method, more than 30 thousand titles of books have been printed, the average circulation of one book was 300 copies. These books are called incunabula.

The printing of books in Old Church Slavonic began at the end of the 15th century. The Belarusian printer Francisk Skorina achieved especially great success here, in 1517-1519. who printed books in Prague, and in 1525 - in Vilna.

In the Muscovite state, book printing appeared in the middle of the 16th century. Its founder was Ivan Fedorov. The first book "The Apostle", printed at the Moscow Printing Yard (it was the first Moscow printing house), dates back to 1564.

Johannes Gutenberg. Logo of the brewing company "Schöfferhofer".

The time of the invention of printing refers to the era of the end of the struggle between democracy and the aristocracy in the medieval cities of Europe, the flourishing of humanism and the beginning of an unprecedented growth in artistic creativity.

A new stage of social development required the reproduction of books at a pace that medieval scribes could not provide. The invention of printing meant a revolution, but every revolution has its own history. The case of Johannes Gutenberg, the universally recognized creator of the European method of printing, was a remarkable result of a process that stretched for a millennium.

There are four fundamental components of modern printing methods: a typesetting plate, along with the necessary procedure for setting it up and fixing it in position, a printing press, the right type of printing ink, and a printable material such as paper.

Paper was invented in China many years ago (Dai Lun) and has long been widely used in the West. It was the only element of the printing process that Johannes Gutenberg had ready-made. Although even before Gutenberg, some work was carried out to improve the remaining elements of typography. Chinese sources testify that at the beginning of the second millennium it was (from a specially fired clay mass, and later from bronze). There is no reason to believe that Gutenberg was familiar with the experience of the Chinese. Obviously, Gutenberg came to solve the problem of movable type on his own and introduced many important innovations. For example, he found a metal alloy suitable for typesetting, created a die for accurate and accurate casting of letter sets, oil-based printing ink, and a machine suitable for printing.

But Gutenberg's overall contribution is much more valued than any of his personal inventions or improvements. His merit lies mainly in the fact that he combined all the elements of printing into an efficient system of production. It is for printing, unlike all other previous inventions, that the process of mass production is essential. Gutenberg created not just one device, not just one mechanism, and not even a whole series of technical devices. He created a complete finished industrial process.

The first attempts to replicate printed materials were embossing, which began to be used in Europe in the 13th century for the production of playing cards. Then - making a convex drawing on a wooden board and imprinting it on a sheet - goes into the field of book business. The beginning of the 15th century was marked by the appearance of paintings and small works printed in this way. Woodcut printing was especially developed in the Netherlands.

It remained to take the last step - cut the board into movable letters and move on to typing. The embodiment of this thought logically followed from the method of teaching literacy - the folding of words from individual letters.

The basis of Gutenberg's invention is the creation of what is now called type, i.e. metal blocks (letters) with a bulge at one end, giving the imprint of the letter. The letter is so simple that we take it for granted, and it seems strange the long, painstaking work that Gutenberg had to do to create the letter. Meanwhile, it can be said without exaggeration that Gutenberg actually proved his genius by solving the problem of type production, and it was precisely with this that he created a new art.

He began, apparently, with a simple division of a wooden board into movable wooden letters. However, this material, due to its fragility, changes in shape from moisture and the inconvenience of fixing in a printed form, quickly proved unsuitable for solving the problems that the inventor faced.

The emergence of the idea of ​​a metal type did not predetermine the achievement of the necessary results. Most likely, Gutenberg began by carving letters directly on metal plates and only later mastered the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe enormous advantage of casting exactly the same type of letters in a once created form.

But there was one more detail on which the inventor had to work hard - this is the creation of a punch. It is possible, of course, to cut the shape of a letter or word deep into the metal and then, pouring fusible metal into the forms prepared in this way, to obtain letters with a convex point of the letter. However, it is possible to greatly simplify the task if you make one model of a convex letter on solid metal - a punch. With a punch, a series of inverse in-depth images of the desired letter are imprinted in softer metal, matrices are obtained, and then a quick casting of any number of letters is organized. The next step is to find an alloy that provides both ease of manufacture (casting) and sufficient strength of the font to withstand repeated printing. Only the invention of the punchson, the necessary alloy, and the organization of word casting marked a decisive and irrevocable success. All this path of searching was extremely long and difficult, and it is not surprising that Gutenberg could use almost the entire fifteen years of his Strasbourg life to go through it.

Gutenberg obviously owns the introduction of the first type-setting cash desk and a major innovation in printing - the creation of a printing press. The Gutenberg printing press is extremely simple - it is a simple wooden screw press. As a fundamental principle, he used the presses that already existed by that time, which were used in winemaking. Gutenberg converted a grape juice press into the world's first commercial printing press.

The best black paint in the Middle Ages was considered soot obtained by burning vine and rubbed with vegetable oil. Gutenberg invented printing ink - Lampenruß, Firnis und Eiweiß/lamp black and linseed oil or drying oil.

The first works of Gutenberg were small pamphlets and one-sheets; for larger works, he had no capital and had to seek it from others. At the beginning of 1450, Gutenberg entered into a community with the wealthy Mainz burgher Johann Fust, who lent him money. At the beginning of 1450. the project of a major publication began to take over the thoughts of the first printer - a grandiose project at that time. It was supposed to be published full text bible on Latin. It was for this work that Gutenberg had to borrow from Fust huge sums of money. By the way, at about the same time, the printer Pamfilius Castaldi worked in Italy, the master Lavrenty Koster worked in Holland, and Johann Mentelin worked in the same Germany. All of them made the transition from printing from wooden boards by rolling with a soft roller to printing with movable type using a press. However, the decisive technological innovations were associated with the Gutenberg typography.

For a long time, the first Bible was revered as the first printed book in general. It is rightfully the first book, because the books that came out earlier, in their volume, rather deserve the name of pamphlets. In addition, this is the first book that has come down to us in its entirety, moreover, with a fairly large number of copies, while all previous books have survived only in fragments. In its design, it is one of the finest books of all ages. There were 180 such books in total: Gutenberg printed 180 copies of the Bible, 45 of them on parchment, the rest on Italian paper with watermarks. And although this is not the first incunabula, it is distinguished from other early printed editions by the exceptional quality of design. To this day, only 21 books have survived in their entirety. $ 25-35 million - and for what other book such fabulous sums were not paid. The first books published in Europe from the beginning of printing until January 1, 1501 were called incunabula (from Latin incunabula - "cradle", "beginning"). Editions of this period are very rare, since their circulation was 100 - 300 copies.

However, in the midst of work on the Bible, Fust demanded the return of the loan. Due to the inability to pay a large part of the debt arose trial, which ended tragically for Gutenberg: he lost not only the printing house, but also a significant part of the equipment of his first printing house. The lost one apparently included the matrices of the first Gutenberg type; the font itself, already badly knocked down, remained the property of Gutenberg. Gutenberg's creative genius was apparently completed by one former Gutenberg apprentice, Peter Schaeffer, and the profits made after the publication of the Bible flowed into Johann Fust's pocket. Schaeffer soon became Fust's son-in-law, marrying his only daughter Christine. Now the printing house bore their names "Fust und Schöffer" (Fust and Schöffer). Schaeffer is credited with such innovations in typography as the dating of books, the publisher's mark, the Greek font, printing with colored inks. Schaeffer fused lead with antimony and received a typographic hart (from hart - hard (German), and made the transition from clay (large, stucco) forms, which were used by his teacher Gutenberg, to copper forms. Scheffer and Christina had four sons who continued a family business, the wheat beer "Schöfferhofer" is still produced in Mainz in his honor.

Thus, Gutenberg lost his monopoly on his invention. Under such conditions, he could not withstand the competition of his wealthy rival and, having published a few small books, was forced to close the printing house. He managed to resume printing only for a short time, in 1460-1462. After the sack and fire of Mainz on October 28, 1462, Gutenberg no longer acted as a printer. On January 17, 1465, Archbishop Adolf II of Mainz of Nassau granted Gutenberg an estate, court dress, 2,180 measures of grain and 2,000 liters of wine for life. Gutenberg died on February 3, 1468 and was buried in Mainz in the Franciscan church.

The invention of Gutenberg made a radical revolution because it solved the problem of making books of any size, many times accelerated the process of printing them; it provided reasonable prices for books and profitability of work. Typography deprived the monks-scribes of income in the first place. Only bookbinders did not suffer. Johannes Gutenberg and other early printers most often produced books unbound, it was up to the readers to take care of this. There were no problems with this, because bookbinding workshops existed in every more or less large city.

It cost nothing for the monks to declare Gutenberg's invention a creation of the devil, and the inventor a servant of Satan. That such a danger to Gutenberg was quite real is proved by the burning in Cologne of the first copies of the printed Bible, as the work of Satan. Typography brought with it the desacralization of the "holy book": henceforth the Bible is publicly available and can be studied independently, without the priest's commentary, and this is enough for communication with God. The "Book of Creation" could not only be contemplated admiringly, strictly observing church instructions, but actively and independently explored.

Gutenberg dissected the craft unity of the simplest printing into separate specialized types of work: type making, typesetting and printing. This invention completely changed the technique of printing and rebuilt the structure of the printing process.

The glory of the creator of one of the most brilliant arts should belong to a person who has devoted his whole life to bringing his work to the end, in order to create for the first time a printing house and a book.

K. N. Berkova

Johannes Gutenberg in his youth was engaged in grinding mirrors and precious stones. Because of the civil strife that broke out in Mainz between the burghers and the nobles, Gutenberg had to flee to Strasbourg. Here it was difficult to find a previous job, Gutenberg took up woodcuts to earn money.
Woodcut - wood carving - was the first, rather unsuccessful attempt to reproduce manuscripts.

Johannes Gutenberg

A picture or letters were drawn on a wooden board and then all unnecessary parts were cut out with sharp knives. The resulting convex pattern was smeared with paint (a mixture of soot with vegetable oil). A damp sheet of paper was placed on top and pressed against the board with a wooden or leather roller. On paper, an imprint of a drawing or text was obtained. The finished sheet was removed and dried. Then the board was again smeared with paint and new prints were made until the board wore out.
In this way, first playing cards and images of saints with explanatory text were made. Later they switched to embossing small books.
The woodcut was, of course, a great achievement compared to the copying of manuscripts. But this embossing method had many significant drawbacks. The original board, after printing several sheets, was no longer good, it had to be thrown away. Prints were made on only one side of the sheet. And most importantly, the whole mass of time and labor was spent on printing a single text.
Gutenberg was keenly aware of all the inconveniences of woodcut production. Is it really impossible to find a more profitable, more productive way of printing? How to save labor and reduce the price of a book?
It is necessary to come up with such a way that once the cut out letters-letters can serve for typing any new text. How to do it? This thought drilled into Gutenberg's brain. Going to work, he stubbornly thought about one thing. At night, he jumped out of bed and paced the room, knitting his eyebrows, thinking intently ...
At one of those moments, an idea flashed through his mind like lightning: why not cut the board into movable characters?
Country monastery in Strasbourg, on the banks of the quiet river Ila. Gutenberg is alone in his stuffy cell, away from the noise of the city. Hot summer day. Coolness blows from the river. From the refectory (dining room) the appetizing smell of fatty monastic fish soup rushes, the clinking of glasses is heard. But Gutenberg doesn't notice anything. He is completely absorbed in his work.
In front of him on the table are small wooden tiles of the same size - exactly as many as the letters in the alphabet. On each tile, he cuts out a convex letter and drills a hole in the side. Then he puts all the tiles side by side and pulls the thread through the holes so that the letters do not crumble. Gasping with excitement, he covers the letters with paint, puts a sheet of paper on them and presses it from above. Taking off the paper, he sees that the entire alphabet has been printed on it.
Oh, wonderful moment! Away with the fuss with boards, with carvers, with scribes! Now you can immediately cut out the movable letters of the entire alphabet and print as much as you like. You no longer have to reprint the entire text because of an insignificant mistake. It is enough to take out the incorrectly placed letter and insert another one instead.
Printing appeared in Europe. All that remains is to put the new discovery into wide use and to scatter wooden type across the paper field with a generous hand.
But... immediately there was a big obstacle. The fact is that the tree turned out to be an unsuitable material for letters. From paint and water, it swelled, dried up, the letters turned out uneven. It was impossible to cut out the small print needed for printing large books from wood. Each wooden letter had to be cut by hand. All these inconveniences prompted the inventor to make a metal type.
It was the biggest event.

Gutenberg printing press

Another innovation was the printing press. Gutenberg's press was certainly not like the advanced printing presses of today. It was a simple wooden screw press. But for its time, it represented a brilliant invention. The printing press, speeding up the printing process many times over, solved the problem of mass production of books. Gutenberg was already producing hundreds of printed sheets a day.
The first publications that came out from under Gutenberg's printing press in the city of Strasbourg were a liturgical book (1445) and an astronomical calendar (1448). Both books were printed in metal movable type.
But Gutenberg's first printed experiments exhausted his meager means. Printing books proved to be a very expensive undertaking. Making metal type, paper, paints, hiring premises, paying workers - all this cost a lot of money. And where to get them?
Unable to find funds in Strasbourg, Gutenberg decides to move to his hometown of Mainz. There are rich burghers here, they will help. Take, for example, his namesake, the well-known rich man Johann Fust in the city ...

Gutenberg at work (from an old engraving)

The inventor reluctantly goes to Fust and initiates him into his discovery. With a low bow, he asks to lend him money for a printing house. But the venerable burgher is reluctant to meet him.
- Dear Mr. Fust, you will do a profitable business. Your money will be returned to you with a vengeance.
“Hey, my son, that’s what my grandmother said in two!” Better a bird in the hand than a bird in the sky. How much money do you need?
- In the first case, a thousand guilders, Mr. Fust.
“You are out of your mind, Gutenberg!” Where can I get this amount?
- Dear Mr. Fust, you will receive six percent of your capital.
“And besides, half the profits, Gutenberg. Otherwise, I'm not your partner!
Pressed against the wall, the inventor was forced to agree to all conditions. Fust gave eight hundred guilders for the equipment of the printing house, and promised three hundred guilders annually to run the business.
Gutenberg set about printing an extensive edition - the Bible. Started in 1450, it was completed in 1455. About forty copies of the Gutenberg Bible have come down to us. These editions are also available in the Russian State Library in Moscow and in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg.

Gutenberg Bible (in the Mainz Museum)

The first Bible took five years to print, but today the Bible can be printed and bound in one day.
Typography took away the income of countless copyist monks. The new art undermined not only the "spiritual", but also the material power of the church. And the church resorted to its favorite trick: it declared the printing of books to be the work of the devil. There is evidence that the first copies of the printed Bible were burned in Cologne as a product of Satan.
A sword hung constantly over Gutenberg's head, ready to strike him. He worked under the threat of church persecution, lawsuits, and complete ruin. The whole life of a brilliant inventor is a continuous chain of labors, hardships, struggles. He is constantly forced to look for rich companions and borrow large sums to print books. He is twice brought to court for debts, his printing supplies and even printed books are taken from him.
Dishonest companions, Fust and his son-in-law Schaeffer, not only ruin Gutenberg, but also challenge him for the honor of a great invention. They try to hide from posterity the very name of the inventor. In the preface to one of the books, Schaeffer muffledly says that "the art of typography was invented by two Johannes" (Johann Fust and Johannes Gutenberg).
Gutenberg died in 1463. He died in poverty and obscurity. Subsequent generations with difficulty managed to unravel the tangle of his life and establish his great services to humanity.

The German Johannes Gutenberg, whose biography is described in this article, had a tremendous impact on the entire the world. His invention truly changed the course of history.

[show]Ancestors of Johannes Gutenberg

Since he was born and lived in the fifteenth century, very little information about him has been preserved. In those distant times, only prominent political and church figures were honored to be included in documentary sources. However, Johann was lucky. Contemporaries appreciated his work, information about him is found in various historical descriptions of that time.

It is known for certain that Johannes Gutenberg was born into a wealthy family of Friel Gensfleisch and Elsa Wirich. This happened around 1400.

His parents married in 1386. Mother came from a family of cloth merchants, so their union was considered unequal. From time immemorial, there has been a struggle in the city between the patricians (the upper strata of the burghers, the father's family) and the workshops (artisans, the mother's family). When the confrontation in Mainz escalated, the family had to leave, so as not to endanger the children.

In Mainz, the family had an estate named after their father, Gensfleisch, and the Gutenberghof farmstead.

Perhaps the inventor had a knighthood, although the origin of his mother and his own activities contradicted this. However, there is an ordinance signed by the French king Charles the Seventh, in which the name of Gutenberg appears.

Childhood and youth

A brief biography of Johann is not contained in any of the ancient sources. It can only be restored from fragmentary data. That is why reliable information about the first years of his life simply does not exist.

There are no records of his baptism. However, some researchers believe that his birthday is June 24, 1400 (the day. There is also no exact information about the place of his birth. It could be either Mainz or Strasbourg.

Johann was youngest child in family. The eldest son's name was Frile, there were also two girls - Elsa and Patze.

After leaving school, the young man studied handicraft, deciding to follow in the footsteps of his mother's ancestors. It is known that he achieved the highest skill and received the title of master, since he subsequently trained apprentices.

Life in Strasbourg

Johannes Gutenberg lived in Strasbourg from 1434. He was engaged in jewelry business, polished precious stones and produced mirrors. It was there that the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bcreating a machine that would print books was born in his head. In 1438, he even created an organization under the mysterious name "Enterprise with Art". The cover was the manufacture of mirrors. This partnership was organized jointly with his student Andreas Dritzen.

Around this time, Gutenberg and his team were on the verge of a brilliant discovery, but the death of a companion delayed the publication of his invention.

The invention of printing

The starting point of modern printing is considered to be 1440, although there are no printed documents, books and sources of that time. There is only circumstantial evidence that a certain Waldfogel has been selling the secret of "artificial writing" since 1444. It is believed that it was John Gutenberg himself. Thus, he tried to raise funds for further development of your machine. So far, it was only raised letters, made of metal and carved in its mirror image. In order for the inscription to appear on paper, it was necessary to use special paint and a press.

In 1448, the German returned to Mainz, where he made a deal with the usurer I. Fust, who paid him eight hundred guilders annually. The profit from the printing house was to be divided by percentage. But in the end, this arrangement began to work against Gutenberg. He stopped receiving the promised money for technical support, but still shared the profits.

Despite all the troubles, Johannes Gutenberg's machine by 1456 acquired several different fonts (five in total). At the same time, the first grammar of Elias Donatus was printed, several official documents and, finally, two Bibles, which became historical monuments for printing.

The 42-line Gutenberg Bible, printed no later than 1455, is considered Johann's main work. It has survived to this day and is kept in the Mainz Museum.

For this book, the inventor created a special font, a variety. It turned out to be quite similar to a handwritten one and due to the many ligatures and abbreviations that were customarily used by scribes.

Since the existing colors were not suitable for printing, Gutenberg had to create his own. Due to the addition of copper, lead and sulfur, the text in the book turned out to be blue-black, with an unusual sheen, red ink was used for headings. To match two colors, one page had to be passed through the machine twice.

The book was published in a circulation of 180 copies, but few have survived to this day. The largest number is in Germany (twelve pieces). There was one copy of the first printed Bible in Russia, but after the revolution, the Soviet government sold it at an auction in London.

In the fifteenth century, this Bible was sold for 30 florins (3 grams of gold in one coin). Today, one page from the book is valued at $80,000. There are 1272 pages in the Bible.

Litigation

Johannes Gutenberg was twice called to trial. This happened for the first time in 1439, after the death of his friend and companion A. Dritzen. His children claimed that the machine was actually their father's invention.

Gutenberg easily won the case. And thanks to his materials, the researchers learned at what stage of readiness the invention was. The documents contained such words as "stamping", "printing", "press", "this work". This clearly indicated the readiness of the machine.

It is known for certain that the process stopped due to the lack of some of the details that Andreas had left. Johann had to restore them himself.

The second trial took place in 1455, when I. Fust sued the inventor for non-payment of interest. The court ruled that the printing house and all its components pass to the plaintiff. Johannes Gutenberg invented printing in 1440, and fifteen years later he had to start from scratch.

Last years

Having hardly survived the consequences of the trial, Gutenberg decided not to give up. He came to the company of K. Gumeri and published in 1460 the work of Johann Balba, as well as a Latin grammar with a dictionary.

In 1465 he entered the service of Elector Adolf.

At the age of 68, the printer died. He was buried in Mainz, but the location of his grave is currently unknown.

Distribution of printing

What Johannes Gutenberg became famous for attracted many. Everyone wants easy money. Therefore, many people appeared who pretended to be the inventors of printing in Europe.

Gutenberg's name was recorded in one of his documents by Peter Schaeffer, his apprentice. After the destruction of the first printing house, its workers dispersed throughout Europe, introducing new technologies in other countries. Johannes Gutenberg was listed as their teacher. Typography quickly spread in Hungary (A. Hess), Italy (Sweichnheim), and Spain. Ironically, none of Gutenberg's students went to France. Parisians independently invited German printers to work in their country.

The final point in the history of the creation of printing was put in his work by Anthony van der Lind in 1878.

Gutenberg studies

The personality of the European printing pioneer has always been popular. Researchers in many countries did not miss the opportunity to write any work about his biography or activities. Even during his lifetime, disputes began about the authorship of the invention and the place (Mainz or Strasbourg).

Some connoisseurs called Gutenberg an apprentice of Fust and Schaeffer. And despite the fact that Schaeffer himself called Johann the inventor of printing, these rumors did not subside for a long time.

Modern researchers call the main problem that in the first printed books there is no colophon, that is, a mark of authorship. By doing this, Gutenberg would be able to avoid a lot of problems and would not allow his legacy to vegetate.

A little more is known about the identity of the inventor, also because there is no personal correspondence, a reliable image. The amount of documentary evidence is insufficient.

Johannes Gutenberg invented unique typefaces, thanks to which it was possible to establish and confirm his legacy.

In Russia, interest in studying the life of a printing pioneer appeared only in the middle of the twentieth century. It was the 500th anniversary of the invention of printing. The first researcher was Vladimir Lyublinsky, a representative of the Leningrad scientific community.

In total, more than 3,000 scientific papers have been written and published in the world (including short biography Gutenberg).

Memory

Unfortunately, no lifetime portraits of Johann have been preserved. The first engraving, dated 1584, was painted in Paris from a description of the inventor's appearance.

Mainz is considered not only the hometown of Johann, but also the place of invention. Therefore, there is a monument to Gutenberg, his museum (opened in 1901).

An asteroid and a crater on the Moon are named after him.

15th century The invention of Johannes Gutenberg contributed to the spread of education, culture, books as the basis of knowledge, so necessary for the development of society, the formation and improvement of national and international literatures, literacy in general, writing, and this, in turn, the entire system of education and upbringing of a person.

There is no exact answer to the question “Who and when was printing invented” and cannot be, at least until the relevant documents are found. Not a single source that has come down to us gives a direct answer to this question, forcing researchers to build their hypotheses only on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Most researchers and laymen attribute the invention of typography to Gutenberg, however, skeptics argue that this is more of a tradition than an indisputable truth - Johann Gutenberg is fraught with too many mysteries. The exact date of birth is still not known.
Johann Gainsfleisch (his real name, Gutenberg, is just a nickname, a nickname derived from the estate in one version of his father, in another version of his mother).
The historiography of the problem is full of contradictions caused by various interpretations sources. The bulk of the material on Gutenberg is related to the description of the trials with his participation. But the subject of the process is not always clear in the minutes, since the cases that Gutenberg dealt with were not subject to publicity due to their secrecy and non-disclosure agreements with partners.

It was he who managed to find the best technical forms for the embodiment of ideas that were partially expressed before him. There is no reason to believe that Gutenberg was familiar with the experience of the Chinese and Koreans, and, obviously, came to the solution of the problem of movable characters in an independent way. Thus, the merit of Gutenberg is reduced to the generalization and systematization of the inventions that existed before him, putting into practice the idea of ​​printing books, and revealed to the world the first, and immediately perfect, models of publications.
Gutenberg's invention revolutionized because it solved the problem production of books of any volume, many times accelerated the process of their printing; it provided reasonable prices for books and profitability of work.
This invention completely changed the technique of printing and rebuilt the structure of the printing process.
Gutenberg split the craft unity of the simplest printing into separate specialized types of work: type making, typesetting and printing, which perhaps foresaw the emergence of manufactory forms of production organization, which from the 17th century were supposed to defeat the craft.
Gutenberg's students spread movable type printing throughout Europe.
From all the extremely numerous printing houses that arose back in the 15th century in different cities and countries, invisible threads stretch to a single center - the Mainz printing press of master Johann - he and only he is the true ancestor of this wonderful art.