GUTENBERG
90
GUTENBERG
busied himself with other inventions also, but in the
meantime continued his work on his airsliip schemes,
the first idea for which he is said to have conceived
while a novice at Baliia. His experiments with the
aeroplane and the hot-air balloon led him to conceive
a project for an actual airship, or rather a ship to sail
in the air, consisting of a cleverly designed triangular
pyramid filled with gas, but he died before he was able
to carry out this idea. The fable about the Inquisition
having forbidden him to continue his aeronautic in-
vestigations and having persecuted him because of
them, is probably a later invention. The only fact
really established by contemporary documents is that
information was laid against him before the Inquisi-
tion, but on quite another charge. He fled to Spain
and fell ill of a fever, of which he died in Toledo. He
wrote: "Manifesto summario para os que ignoram
poderse navegar pelo eleraento do ar " (1709); " Varios
modos de esgotar sem gente as naus que fazern agua "
(1710); some of his sermons also have been printed.
Bioi/raphieUniivrsdlr, Xi\{,l'a.Tis,iS17),21S-2-20:C\ii\A.i.HO. Memoria que iem por ubjtcto revindicar para a nafao portugueza a gloria da imen^ao das viachinaa aeroslaticas (Lisbon, 1843); SiMoES, A invcn^&o dos aerostalos rcivindicada (Evora, 1S6S): MoEDEBECK, Zeilschrill fill- Luflschiffahrt (1893), 1-10; Joao Jalles, Os halves (Lisbon, 1SS7); Wilhelm. An der Wiege der Luflschiffahrt, Ft. II (Hamm, Westphalia. 1909).
B. WlIJHELM.
Gutenberg, Joh.^nn (Henne Ganspleisch zur L.\DEN, commonly called Gutenberg), inventor of printing; b. about 1400; d. 14G7 or 1468 at Mainz. Gutenberg was the son of Friele (Friedrich) Gan.s- fleisch and Else Wj-rich. His cognomen was derived from the house inhabited by his father and his pater- nal ancestors "zur Laden, zu Gutenl.ierg ". The house of Gansfleisch was one of the patrician families of the town, tracing its lineage back to the thirteenth cen- tury. From the middle of the fourteenth century there were two branches, the line to which the inven- tor belongs and the line of Sorgenloeh. In the four- teenth and fifteenth centuries its scions claimed an hereditary position as so-called Hdwgeno^sen, or retainers of the household, of the master of the archi- episcopal mint. In this capacity they doubtless acquired considerable knowledge and technical skill in metal working. They supplied the mint with the metal to be coined, changed the various species of
coins, and had a seat at the assizes in forgery cases. Of Johann Guten- berg's father,Friele Gansfleisch, we know only that he was married inl 3S6 to Else Wyrich, 1.1 a u g h t e r of a liurgher of Mainz, Werner Wyrich zvmi s t e i n e r n Krame (at the sign of the pottery .shop), and that he died in 1419, his wife djnng in 143.3. Of their three chil- dren — Friele (d. 1447), Else, and Johann — the last- named (the in-
JoHANN Gutenberg
From Thevet. *' Vies et portraits des
hommes illvistres' (1584)
ventor of typography) was born some time in the last
decade of the fourteenth centurv, presumably between
1394 and 1.399, at Mainz in the Hof zum Gutenberg,
known to-day as Christophstrasse. 2.
All that is known of his youth is that he was not in Mainz in 1430. It is presumed that he migrated for political reasons to Strasburg, where his family prob- ably had connexions. The first record of Gutenberg's
A Printing Press of 1520
sojourn in Strasburg dates from 14 March, 1434. He
took a place befitting his rank in the patrician class of
the city, but he also at the same time joined the gold-
smiths' guild — quite an exceptional proceeding, yet
characteristic of his untiring technical activity. The
trades which Gutenberg taught his pupils and asso-
ciates, Andreas Dritzehn, Hans Rifle, and Andreas
H e i 1 m a n n , in- ^^^^^
eluded gem-polish- EBMBHI^K^^^^^^^^^ ing, the manufac- ture of looking- glasses and the art of printing, as we learn from the rec- ords of a lawsuit betweenGutenberg and the brothers Georg and Klaus Dritzehn. In these records, Guten- berg appears dis- tinctly as technical originator and manager of the business. Concern- ing the "new art ", one witness states that, in his capac- ity of goldsmith, he had supplied in 1436 "printing requisites" to the value of 100 gulden; mention is also made of a press constructed by Konrad Saspach, a turner, with peculiar appliances (screws). The suit was therefore obviously concerned with experiments in typography, but no printed matter that can be traced to these experiments has so far come to light. The appearance at .\vignon of the silversmith \\'ald- vogel, who taught "artificial writing" there in 1444, and po.s.sessed steel alphabets, a press with iron screws and other contrivances, seems to have had some connex- ion with the experiments of Gutenberg. As of Guten- berg's, so of Waldvogel's early experiments, no sample has been preserved. In the year 1437 Gutenberg was sued for "breach of promi.se of marriage" uy a young patrician girl of Strasburg, Ennel zur eisernen T lir. There is notliing to show whether this action led to a marriage or not, but Gutenberg left Strasburg, pre- sumably about 1444. He seems to have perfected at enormous expense his invention shortly afterwards, as is shown by the oldest specimens of printing that have come down to us (" Weltgerichtsgedicht ", i. e. the poem on the last judgment, and the "Calendar for 144S"). The fact that .Vrnolt Gelthuss, a relative of Gutenberg, lent him 1.50 g\ilden in the year 1448 at Mainz points to the same conclusion. In 1450 Guten- berg formed a partnership with the wealthy burgher, Johann Fust of Mainz, for the purpose of completing his contrivance and of printing the so-called " 42-line Bible", a task which was finished in the years 1453- 1455 at the Hof zum Humbrecht (to-day Schuster- gasse. IS, 20). Fust brought suit in 1455 to recover the 2000 gulden he had advanced and obtained judg- ment for a portion of the amount with interest. As a result of Gutenberg's insolvency, the machinery and type which he had made and pledged to Fust became the property of the latter. In addition to the types for the 42-rine Bible, the mortgage covered the copi- ous stock of tvpe which had evidently been already prepared for the edition of the Psalter, which was printed by Fust and Schoffer in August, 1457. This included new tj-pe in two sizes, as well as the world- famous initial letters with their ingenious contrivance for two-colour printing. About 14.57 Gutenberg also parted with his earliest-constructed founts of type, which he had made for the 36-line Bible, and
