Gutenberg, Johannes (ca. 1400-1468)

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GUTENBERG, JOHANNES (ca. 1400-1468)

Although no piece of printing in existence bears the name of Johannes Gutenberg, documentary evidence, as well as a large body of testimony from contemporary writers, identifies him as the inventor of printing by movable type in the Western world.

Gutenberg was born in Mainz, Germany, to a well-to-do father who was probably involved in the cloth trade (as well as dealing with precious metals) and a mother who was the daughter of a shopkeeper. The different social backgrounds of his parents made it impossible for Gutenberg to be part of the patrician class, so, out of necessity, he became a self-reliant entrepreneur. Probably through the affiliation of his father's family with the society of the mint, Gutenberg learned metallurgy and casting techniques. He left Mainz around 1429 due to civic conflicts and during the next five years honed his metalworking skills—skills that would play a major role in his invention.

Gutenberg was active in Strasbourg between 1434 and 1444, and, based on a document concerning a lawsuit brought against him in 1439, scholars have inferred that Gutenberg was already experimenting with some kind of printing technique at that time. Gutenberg's next major documented appearance is in Mainz in 1448, when a relative obtained a loan for him. What is known about the next seven years comes from a document, dated November 6, 1455, that summarizes a lawsuit brought against Gutenberg by Johann Fust, a money broker and Gutenberg's business partner. Fust sought repayment of two loans: the first loan may have been made around 1450 for the purpose of setting up a new printing establishment, secured by equipment; and the second two years later, in 1452, as an investment in "the work of the books." It is likely that Gutenberg lost the action Fust brought against him. At the close of the legal proceedings, two print shops, it is speculated, were operating in Mainz. As a result of the lawsuit, Gutenberg forfeited one of these shops, and Fust, with the help of Peter Schöffer (a scribe who would later become his son-in-law), operated that shop. Scholars have surmised that Gutenberg continued to operate the unforfeited print shop through the late 1450s and perhaps into the 1460s. Gutenberg received a pension from the Archbishop of Mainz in January 1465 and died sometime before February 26, 1468.

There is much continued speculation about whether or not Gutenberg, working in Europe, was aware of printing techniques that were already being used in Asia by that time. The invention of movable type made from clay is recorded in China between 1041 and 1049. Later, these ceramic letters were replaced by wooden ones. In 1234, metal characters were used in the production of a fifty-volume Korean etiquette book. Certainly, the Western alphabet is more conducive to building new words and texts by simply reshuffling letters than is the Asian system of ideographs, and it is this attribute on which Gutenberg's invention is based. Although whether Gutenberg is the actual inventor of movable printing is a matter of serious debate, the evidence does indicate that he assembled a number of technologies that were already in existence and adopted them for the purposes of printing. For example, presses used in the production of wine were adapted to serve the needs of printing, and ink that already existed was reformulated for the printing press. The one clearly new invention—and the key to the advancement of printing—was the adjustable type mold.

Gutenberg realized that the assembly of numerous interchangeable characters into text pages so that an impression could be transferred onto a surface, such as parchment or paper, required each metal letter to be exactly rectangular and in reverse relief. The process to create such a letter began with the cutting of a piece of steel or other hard metal, called a "punch," that resulted in an engraved relief image of a letter in reverse. The punch was then driven, with one blow, into a rectangular bar of copper, producing a matrix that differed in width depending on the width of the letter; for example, the letter "m" was wider than the letter "i." The matrix was then positioned into the adjustable type mold that allowed for this variation in letter width. The type mold consisted of several parts, held together by iron screws in such a way that each time an individual letter was cast, the mold could be separated quickly into two halves and then quickly reassembled after the cast letter had been released from the mold. The metal used to cast the type consisted of lead, tin, and antimony. The result of this invention, and the assemblage of relevant technologies, was the ability to produce uniform and accurate impressions over long press runs, a method ideally suited to the production of multiple copies, thus satisfying the growing demand for reading material.

The major work to originate from Gutenberg's workshop was the forty-two-line Bible, often referred to as the Gutenberg Bible. The book is a reflection of the daring, skill, and artistic and intellectual aptitude of its creator. Gutenberg proved that his printing technique could produce a book of high quality without compromise. Even today, this level of mastery is rarely matched and never surpassed in quality.

Although various methods of printing had been in use earlier in Asia and methods of printing with movable type may have been developed in Europe before Gutenberg, his genius lay in the assembly of processes and the perfecting of them into one unified craft. This craft, capable of standardization and establishment in other places, permitted the rapid duplication of texts, thus changing the structure of communication forever. Books and knowledge became available to a wider sector of society and promoted economic progress through the diffusion of practical skills and scientific discovery. In essence, through the power of the printed book, no field of human endeavor was left untouched.