Gutenberg, Johannes

Gutenberg, Johannes (about 1398-about 1468), German inventor.

Johannes Gutenberg worked as a goldsmith in Strasbourg.

He began to experiment with ways of printing and invented movable type.

Wooden type of this kind had been used earlier in China and Korea but never before in the Western World.

He made moulds for each of the letters of the alphabet and used these to make lots of letters in metal. Then he put the letters together to form words and sentences and fastened them inside a frame.

After he had printed from them, he took the letters out of the frame and they could be used again to print something else.

Gutenberg set up his printing press in his home town of Mainz and began printing there in 1452.

His first book was published in 1455. It is known as the Gutenberg Bible. Only three copies of this book exist today and they are the most valuable books in the world. There is a copy in the United States Library of Congress and it is priceless.

See Diana Childress Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Press