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From Gutenberg to the Internet Timeline An Annotated Chronology of the History of Information from about 30,000 B.C.E. to the present, by Jeremy M. Norman. |
| 1920194019501960 |
|
| 1460 | The Mentelin Bible, printed by Johann Mentelin by 1460, is the second edition of the Bible and first book printed in Strasbourg. Twenty-eight copies survive, all on paper. There is a copy in the Scheide Library at Princeton. "Until Scheide's purchase in 2001, no copy had been sold for more than 75 years." |
| 1460 | The first not entirely religious printed book is issued in Mainz. It is an encyclopedic work by the 13th century Dominican of Genoa, Johannes Balbus, and entitled the Summa grammaticalis quae vocatur Catholicon. The colophon of this book reads in translation: "This book was produced not with a reed, stylus, or quill, but by the admirable design, proportion, and adjustment of punches and matrices." The means by which this book is printed continues to be the subject of research. "As early as 1905 Gottfried Zedler recognized that the Catholicon edition dated Mainz 1460 exists in three impressions printed from a single setting of type but associated with three presses (with different pinhole patterns) and printed on three distinct paper stocks. In 1982 Paul Needham presented evidence that the three issues were printed at three different times, according to the datable use of their paper stocks: copies on Bull's Head paper (with which are classed the vellum copies) in 1460, copies on Galliziani paper ca. 1469, and copies on Crown and Tower papers ca. 1472. Moreover, Needham argued that the three impressions were produced, not from standing type, but from two-line 'slugs' cast from the type and capable of being reassembled for subsequent impressions. According to this theory, the first impression of the Catholicon was produced by Gutenberg himself in 1460; the 'slugs' then passed into the possession of Konrad Humery with Gutenberg's other typographic material after the latter's death in 1468 and were re-used by Humery, probably with the help of Peter Schoeffer, ca. 1469. In this view, which has aroused prolonged controversy among incunabulists, the 1460 Catholicon represents not only Gutenberg's last production but also his final achievement, the invention of an early form of stereotyping" (The Nakles Collection of Incunabula, Christie's New York, 17 April 2000, Lot 2). |
| 1461 or earlier | A 36-line Bible printed at Bamberg is thought to be the third printed edition of the Bible. There is a copy in the Scheide Library at Princeton. "Only 14 copies survive, all on paper. Scheide's copy once belonged to the Benedictines of Würzburg, whose convent was dissolved in 1803, and to Earl Spencer. When Scheide bought it at an auction in Nov. 1991, no copy had been on the market for 200 years." |
| 1461 | Albrecht Pfister of Bamberg, who is characterized as "a church dignitary and amateur printer" issues a book of fables, Der Edelstein by Ulrich Boner, a Domincan monk. Containing 101 woodcuts this is also the first book printed in German. "The woodcuts were impressed by hand in blanks left for the purpose in the printed text--much as though they had been rubber stamps." (Ivins, Prints and Visual Communication [1969] xi). Only one copy of the original printing survived. It is preserved in the Herzog August Bibliothek at Wolfenbuttel. A second edition issued about 1464 contains 103 woodcuts. |
1462 August 14 |
Fust and Schoffer issue the first dated bible at Mainz. It contains the first printer's mark ever used--the two shields of Fust and Schoffer, indicating their partnership. |
| 1462 October 27 | A feud between two Archbishop Diether von Isenburg, who was supported by the citizens, and Adolf II von Nassau, who had been named bishop for Mainz by the Pope, causes. Archbishop Adolf II to raid the city of Mainz, plundering and killing 400 inhabitants. At a tribunal, those who survive lose all their property, which is then divided between those who promised to follow Adolf II. Those who will not promise to follow Adolf II (among them Johann Gutenberg) are driven out of the or thrown into prison. The new Archbishop denies Mainz its town rights and makes the city an archepiscopal capital. This debacle stops printing in Mainz for the next few years and contributes to the spread of printing. "It wiped out commerce there, and the consequent lack of money led printers, who were established in a kind of industrial group, to scatter widely. This accounts for the German names we find among the earliest printers in other countries throughout Europe." (Updike). |
| 1463 | Peter Schoeffer issues the first publication with a regular printed title page with his edition of Pope Pius II's Bulla Cruciatae contra Turcos. The title page will not come into widespread use until near the end of the 15th century. |
1465 |
The first book printed in Italy, an edition of Cicero’s De Oratore, is issued from the press of the German printers Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz at the monastery of Subiaco. It is also the first book printed in Roman type. The edition has been estimated between 100 and 275 copies. 18 copies are extant today. |
| 1465 | The earliest extant edition of the block-book, Biblia Pauperum, is assigned to this date on the basis of watermarks. Other block-books, Canticum canticorum and Ars Moriendi are thought to date from this time or 1466. |
| 1466 | Johann Mentelin of Strassburg issues the first edition of the Bible in German--the first edition in any modern language. |
| not after 1466 | An anonymous scholar describes the value and difficulty of preparing as accurate a manuscript text for as possible for printing probably for the first time in any printed book in his preface to a corrected version of Augustine's De Arte Praedicandi , : "Nevertheless I have thought it by all means worthwhile that I should first expend much labour over what would be to the common utility of the Church: that I may have this most useful little book- worthy of all esteem - correct, in order that, after correction this way, I would be able to communicate it more usefully to all those wishing to have it. Therefore, as God is my witness, I have taken great pains in the correction of it, in such a way that I have sought out diligently all the copies which I have been able to discover for this purpose in any of the libraries in the school of Heidelberg, in Speyer and in Worms, and finally also in Strassburg. And since in the course of this I have learned by experience that that particular book of Augustine is rare to come by even in the great and well stocked libraries, and even rarer can it be had for copying from any of those same libraries; and also, what is worse, that when it can be found in there it is more rarely corrected or emended; on that account I have been moved to work most carefully to this end; that, according to my exemplar- now corrected at least by as much care and labou8r as I am capable of- the said little book can be multipled in this state, and in such a way that i may become rapidly and easily known in a short time, for the use of many and to the common advantage of the Church. On account of which, since I judged that this could not be done more expeditiously by any other method or means, I have persuaded by every means that discreet gentleman Johann Mentelin, inhabitant of Strassburg, master of the art of typography, to the end that the might see fit to undertake the responsibily and toil of multiplying this little book by means of printing, having my copy before his eyes. . . ." (M.B. Parkes, Introduction to Peter Ganz (ed.) The Role of the Book in Medieval Culture, 1986, 15-16) |
| 1467 | Sweynheym and Pannartz issue the first edition of St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei from their press at the monastery of Subiaco. The manuscript from which they based this text is preserved there in the monastery of St. Scholastica. "That the codex was used for the printing is clearly shown by the frequent editorial corrections, the inky fignerprints, and the scored marks in the margins to indicate the end of the text page. The texts of the printed pages correspond almost exactly to these marking." (Wilson, The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle [1976] 34). This may be the earliest printed book for which the printer's manuscript remains extant. |
1467 Before July 20 |
Adolph Rusch of Strasbourg issues the first printed edition of De Sermonum Proprietate, seu de Universo, written by Hrabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz in the first half of the ninth century. This is the first printed encyclopedia and the first printed book to contain a chapter on medicine--probably the first significant printed text on a scientific subject. |
| 1469 | The Venetian Senate grants the German printer Johannes de Spira a five-year monopoly on printing in the city. Under this protection he initiates printing in Venice, issuing an edition of Cicero's Epistolae ad Familiares in an edition of 100 copies. Later the same year he issues a second edition of 300 copies. He also publishes the first edition of Pliny's Historia Naturalis in an edition of 100 copies. |
| 1469 | The printers Sweynhem and Pannartz issue an edition of the Opera of Virgil at Rome, and Johnann Mentelin issues another edition at Strassburgh.These are the first printed editions, but it is not known which edition is first. Virgil will be one of the most frequently printed authors in the 15th century with about 100 editions issued. |
| 1469-72 | Though the names of the printers are not known, and the books are not dated, it is generally accepted that the six so-called "Rome incunabula" are the earliest books printed in Hebrew. |
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| 1920194019501960 |
(This page was last revised on
January 24, 2006. Please report errors
and broken links to jnorman@jnorman.com.) |
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