Johann Zainer

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German first edition of Boccaccio's De claris mulieribus (German translation of several Frowen by Heinrich Steinhöwel ), printed in Ulm by Johann Zainer, not before August 14, 1473.

Johann Zainer († around 1523 ) was the second printer in Ulm who is documented with a first print there in 1473; he developed the book decoration further and published the first German translation of a work by Giovanni Boccaccio , De claris mulieribus .

Life

Johann Zainer came - like Günther Zainer , printer in Augsburg - from Reutlingen ; the two brothers might, or almost certainly, have been related. Like the man from Augsburg, he received his training as a printer in Strasbourg, where in 1465 his marriage to Susanne Zuckwert, the daughter of a bricklayer, was entered in the civil register.

His earliest print, the plague ordinance by Ulm city doctor Heinrich Steinhöwel , dates from 1473. After an initially successful activity, Zainer's business declined after a few years; he was expelled from the city in 1493, probably due to debts, but returned later, printed, if only a little, until 1515 and was mentioned for the last time in 1523.

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Significant prints from Johann Zainer's Ulmer Offizin are a German chronicle , written by Heinrich Steinhöwel, which is considered to be one of the oldest journals printed with movable type, and the work De claris mulieribus by Giovanni Boccaccio: Von etlichen Frowen , which was translated into German by the same . Another translation by Steinhöwel, that of Aesop's Fables , and Petrarch's Griseldis (1473) also came from Zainer's press. In addition, he printed a number of theological writings, including a. 1480 a Bible and the Fridolinsvita produced using the cradle printing method . Like many of his colleagues, Zainer also oriented himself towards the interests of the clergy as well as those of the citizens; he was not commercially successful with it.

Above all, the commitment of the artist, later named Boccaccio master , for the majority of the illustrations in Petrarch, Boccaccio and Aesop brought Johann Zainer the fame of having decisively further promoted book decoration; In contrast to the previously customary woodcuts that emphasize the contours, the cuts by the Boccaccio master are characterized by light-dark effects, spatiality and plasticity, a style that has been formative for the illustration of the early prints and the later since the 1480s for example Albrecht Dürer perfected.

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  • Karl Steiff:  Zainer, Günther and Johannes . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 44, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, pp. 672-674.
  • Karl Falkenstein: History of book printing in its development and training. Teubner, Leipzig 1840, p. 171.
  • Fritz Funke: Buchkunde An overview of the history of books and writing. 6th edition. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11390-0 , pp. 88 and 235 f. (Reprint of the Munich 1969 edition).

Web links

Commons : Johann Zainer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinrich Steinhöwel: Little book of the order of the pestilence. ( Regimen Pestilentiae ), Johann Zainer, Ulm 1473 (digitized version) ; Facsimile in: Arnold Carl Klebs , Karl Sudhoff (Hrsg.): The first printed plague writings. Munich 1926, pp. 171–177.
  2. ↑ Jürgen Martin: The ›Ulmer Wundarznei‹. Introduction - Text - Glossary on a monument to German specialist prose from the 15th century. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1991 (= Würzburg medical-historical research. Volume 52), ISBN 3-88479-801-4 (also medical dissertation Würzburg 1990), p. 13.
  3. ^ Bernhard Oeschger: History of the monastery and the city of Säckingen . In: Hugo Ott (Ed.): Säckingen. The history of the city . Theiss, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-8062-0191-9 , p. 16.
personal data
SURNAME Zainer, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION second printer in Ulm
DATE OF BIRTH 15th century
DATE OF DEATH around 1523