Johannes Gutenberg

Johannes Gutenberg

God suffers in the multitude of souls whom His word can not reach. Religious truth is imprisoned in a small number of manuscript books, which confine instead of spread the public treasure. Let us break the seal which seals up holy things and give wings to Truth in order that she may win every soul that comes into the world by her word no longer written at great expense by hands easily palsied, but multiplied like the wind by an untiring machine. Yes, it is a press, certainly, but a press from which shall soon flow in inexhaustible streams the most abundant and most marvelous liquor that has ever flowed to relieve the thirst of man! Through it God will spread His Word. A spring of pure truth shall flow from it! Like a new star, it shall scatter the darkness of ignorance, and cause a light heretofore unknown to shine among men.

– Lines written in the Gutenberg Bible by Johannes Gutenberg

Jonannes Gutenberg (c. 1400-1468) was a German inventor and printer, best known for introducing Europe to the printing press and as the founding father of the Printing Revolution. Through his machine, which used mechanical movable type, he gave rise to what many consider to be one of the defining forces of modern history, serving as the dynamo for the ideas that fueled the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment by spreading knowledge and information on a massive scale and in an efficient and timely manner. The first major work to issue from his press was the first printed edition of the Bible – known as the Gutenberg Bible, the 42-line Bible or the Mazarin Bible.