THE PRINTING PRESS

Johannes Gutenberg was born in Mainz, Germany. His date of birth dates between 1396 y 1400,
nobody knows precisely his date of birth and today it`s still being questioned. His real surname
was Gensfleish, he was son of the merchant Friele Gensfleish.
Gutenberg was an expert of the art of smelting of gold. He was noted as a blacksmith in his city
because of that handled this art with ease.
He went to Erfurt University in 1419, year in which his father died. He formed a partnership with
Hanz Riffe to develop certain secrets projects.
Back to Mainz Johannes formed a new partnership with Johann Fust who gave him a loan, which
in 1449 published the “Constance Missal”, the first typographic book world. In 1452 Gutenberg
started the edition of the bible of 42 lines, also known as the Gutenberg Bible.
In 1455 Gutenberg lacked economic solvency to repay the loan that Fust had granted him, so their
union was dissolved. Because of this Gutenberg was in poverty, even had to give the secret of
assemble printers to survive.
On the other hand, Fust got associated his nephew Peter Schoffer, and together they published in
1456 the Bible.
Until the 1459 and previous years books were spread across copies handwritten by monks and
friars, who were specifically dedicated to pray and replicate books. Despite what is believed not
all the monks and scribes knew reading and writing, they just replicated what they saw. The
elaboration of each book could take up to 10 years.
In this environment Gutenberg bet to make several copies of the Bible in less than half the time
the fastest copyists took. So he created with iron, the first mobile molds, which was able to
perfectly imitate handwritten Bibles.
But Gutenberg not well calculated the time which would lead him to start up his new invention.
So before the end of the Bibles, he ran out of money, again. So he requested another loan to Fust.
Fust accepted and put his nephew in charge inspect his investment.
After 2 years of work Gutenberg returned to run out of money. He was close to finishing the 150
Bibles that he had proposed but Fust did not give him more time. And as Gutenberg had not paid
the loan, Fust stayed with the business.
Gutenberg left from his press wrecked. Although a Bishop welcomed him for his work, until he
died in 1468.