Gutenberg and his time in data

Around 1400 Johannes Gensfleisch is born in Mainz in the Gutenberg courtyard and is probably baptized on June 24 (St. John's Day) in the parish church of St. Christoph.

Around 1419 Gutenberg's father, Friele Gensfleisch, dies in Mainz. The following year, Gutenberg and his siblings have to go to court with their stepsister Patze over their father's inheritance.

1419/20 The Erfurt University register lists a Johannes de Altavilla for the winter semester

1419/20, which could be Johannes Gutenberg, although this cannot be determined with certainty.

Around 1428 In Mainz, the city's dire financial situation leads to repeated conflicts between the politically ruling families, who are supported by the city's patricians or the craftsmen's guilds. In protest against the tax demands of the council, which consisted mainly of representatives of the guilds, numerous members of the traditional ruling class, i.e., the patrician families, left the city, including Gutenberg and the Gensfleisch family.

1429-1434 Gutenberg's exact whereabouts during these years are uncertain.

1433 Gutenberg's mother, Else Wirich, dies in Mainz; her estate is divided among her three children, Friele, Else, and Henne (Johannes) Gensfleisch.

1434 First documented mention of Gutenberg's long stay in Strasbourg (1434-1444). The document reveals that Gutenberg had the Mainz town clerk Nikolaus von Wörrstadt imprisoned in Strasbourg in order to enforce the payment of 310 guilders in rent arrears from the Mainz city council.

In 1436/37, Gutenberg was accused before the ecclesiastical court in Strasbourg by Ennelin von der Isern Türe, the daughter of a Strasbourg citizen, for failing to fulfill a marriage promise. Whether Gutenberg subsequently married Ennelin, or the outcome of the court proceedings, is not known. During the trial, Gutenberg describes Niklaus Schott, one of Ennelin's witnesses, as a poor, destitute man who leads a poor, destitute life of lies and deceit. Gutenberg is then sued by Niklaus Schott for defamation and ordered to pay 15 guilders.

1436-1444 In the entries of the Strasbourg Helbeling customs book, a wine tax register, Gutenberg initially appears among the Halbkonstofelern, i.e., the not quite full members of the patrician association of Konstofeler, but also as a half-member of the goldsmiths' guild and in the list of those who do not belong to any guild. In a city conscription list for wartime, however, Gutenberg is listed for the year

1443/44 in the group of patricians or Konstofeler with half a horse as his contribution to the defense. His social status during his time in Strasbourg thus remains unclear, but probably corresponded to that of a so-called Freimeister.

1439 Gutenberg had to answer charges before the Strasbourg Council in 1439. The minutes of the proceedings, including extensive witness statements, are the authoritative sources on Gutenberg's business, artistic, and craft activities in Strasbourg. They report on Gutenberg's teaching and working community with various Strasbourg citizens, including Andreas Dritzehn, for the production of so-called pilgrimage mirrors for the great Aachen pilgrimage, but also mention a second business partnership and a secret art of Gutenberg's, which the partners were strictly required to keep confidential. Since this business secret also mentions a press and material "belonging to the printing press," it can be assumed with a high degree of probability that Gutenberg had already put various elements of his invention into practice in Strasbourg and had already carried out his first printing experiments.

1441/1442 Gutenberg acts as a wealthy guarantor in connection with a loan of 100 pounds of Strasbourg denarii, which the nobleman Johann Karle borrowed from the St. Thomas Foundation in Strasbourg. Just one year later, Gutenberg himself takes out a loan of 80 pounds of the same currency from the St. Thomas Foundation, which he is unable to repay until the end of his life and is therefore prosecuted several times, including by the imperial court in Rottweil.

1444–1448 No information has been preserved about Gutenberg's whereabouts and activities during this period.

1448 Gutenberg returned to Mainz and, through the mediation of his relative Arnold Gelthuß, took out a loan of 150 guilders at 5 percent interest, which he probably used to further perfect his invention.

Before 1450 Gutenberg prints a poem about the Last Judgment in German, based on a Sibylline book written in Thuringia around 1360. The earliest print attributed to Gutenberg survives only as a small fragment, and its place of printing and year of publication have not yet been conclusively determined.

1450-1452 Johannes Fust, a lawyer from Mainz, initially lends Gutenberg a sum of 800 guilders for Gutenberg's costly project, which requires considerable sums of money not only for setting up a printing workshop but also for hiring wage-earning assistants. Probably as early as 1452, Fust made a further payment of 800 guilders to become a partner in the joint venture, or, as the sources put it, the work of books.

Between 1452 and 1454, the 42-line Bible was printed in Latin in an estimated print run of approximately 180 copies, around 30 of which were on parchment. The first copies, in the form of unbound printed fascicles, were already being offered for sale in the fall of 1454 during the Frankfurt Imperial Diet by a "wondrous man" (vir mirabilis), who may have been Gutenberg himself.

1454/55 Gutenberg's workshop prints the 30- or 31-line "Cypriot indulgences," the proceeds of which Pope Calixtus III intends to use to finance a crusade against the Turks in Cyprus.

1455 A document named after the notary Ulrich Helmasperger, the so-called Helmasperger Notarial Instrument of November 6, 1455, informs us about the lawsuit brought by Fust against Gutenberg for non-payment of interest and repayment of money. Although it is only a single document from the entire lawsuit, it is our most important source of information about Gutenberg's business connections to Fust and the printing of the 42-line Bible. In the lawsuit, the outcome of which is not clearly documented, Gutenberg probably loses the entire Bible print run as well as large parts of his printing workshop.

1457 The Mainz Psalter is completed in the Fust-Schöffer printing workshop as the first example of three-color printing. A second edition, with significantly altered text, appears in 1459.

1462 In the course of the dispute between the two rival archbishops of Mainz, Adolf von Nassau, the candidate favored by the Pope, conquers the city in a street battle on the night of October 29. The city is then plundered and partially destroyed. Numerous families are banished from Mainz for a long period of time, and their farms are given to Adolf von Nassau's supporters. The Gutenberg farm also changed hands during these years, suggesting that Johannes Gutenberg was also among the losers and victims of the Mainz feud. Various relatives of Gutenberg are also known to have been in exile in nearby Frankfurt during these years.

1465 The Archbishop of Mainz, Adolf von Nassau, takes Johannes Gutenberg into his service and grants him, until the end of his life, generous donations of wine, grain, and clothing, as well as freedom from the taxes and services that the citizens of the city usually have to pay to the Elector. The reasons for this honor have not yet been clarified.

1468 On February 3, 1468, Johannes Gutenberg dies at the Hof zum Algesheimer and is buried in the Franciscan Church in Mainz (demolished in 1742). In the same month, the former city solicitor Dr. Konrad Humery receives various printing devices that Gutenberg had previously borrowed from Humery, with the express condition that they be used only within the city of Mainz.

1499 The first obituary for Johannes Gutenberg, written by Adam Gelthuß, appears in the book Ad illustrissimum Bavariae ducem Philippum, printed by Peter Friedberg in Mainz, with the note that Gutenberg is buried in the Franciscan Church in Mainz.

1504 Mainz University professor Ivo Wittig has a memorial stone erected in the Hof zum Gutenberg with the Latin inscription: "To Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz, who was the first to invent the art of printing and who rendered outstanding services to the whole world with this art, Ivo Wittig erected this stone as a monument in 1504."

1565/1568 The first fictional portrait of Gutenberg appears as a woodcut in the first Latin edition of Heinrich Pantaleon's biography of famous Germans in Basel. In the German edition, published just three years later, there is already a second portrait of the inventor, which is also not based on any authentic or contemporary model. There is no reliable information about Gutenberg's actual appearance.

1741 J. D. Köhler's programmatic work "Ehrenrettung Gutenbergs" (Rehabilitation of Gutenberg) is published in Leipzig.

1798 A gathering of European astronomers in Gotha decides to incorporate the constellation located between the constellations Ship, Unicorn, and Great Dog into the celestial map as the constellation "Gutenberg." This decision was implemented by J.E. Bode. There were at least two editions of his widely distributed celestial maps. Both show the printer's workshop and the Officina Typographica / Atelier Typographique. Around 1825, these maps served as the basis for an interesting teaching aid for self-study of the starry sky, the "Urania's Mirror." This collection of maps was reissued in 1993 in C. Tennant's "The Box of Stars," including the constellation "Atelier Typographique."

In 1835, astronomers Beer/Maedler named a lunar crater "Guttemberg" in their Mappa Selenographica, which the International Astronomical Union (IAU) recognized as Gutenberg in 1935.

In 1914, Wiesbaden astronomer Dr. Franz Kaiser discovered a minor planet, which he named (777) Gutemberga. Although the IAU did not adopt the historical constellation, it has not been completely forgotten, even today. Further details on the topic of "Gutenberg and Astronomy" can be found on the website of the Mainz Amateur Astronomers.

1827 Construction of the first figurative Gutenberg monument, created by sculptor Joseph Scholl, in the Hof zum Gutenberg in Mainz (now located in the administration building of the Gutenberg Museum).

1837 Inauguration of the Gutenberg monument by the classicist sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, which served as a model for numerous other Gutenberg monuments.

1900 Founding of the Gutenberg Museum on the occasion of the celebrations marking the 500th anniversary of Johannes Gutenberg's birth.

1962 The Gutenberg Museum is awarded the title: World Museum of Printing Art.

1968 The 500th anniversary of Johannes Gutenberg's death is commemorated around the world.