Peter Schöffer

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Peter Schöffer. Monument from 1836 in Gernsheim World icon

Peter Schöffer ( Petrus Schoiffer ) (* around 1425 in Gernsheim , † around 1503 in Mainz ) was one of the first booksellers and publishers in the age of book printing. He improved the invention of printing with movable type made by Johannes Gutenberg and played an important role in its economic and technological triumph at the beginning of modern times . Among other things, the printer's brands can be traced back to him , which indicated the origin of the printing works.

Live and act

Incipit Valerius Maximus . Peter Schöffer: Mainz July 18, 1471
Peter Schöffer's printer's stamp , here affixed to the end of Valerius Maximus , 1471

Peter Schöffer was born around 1425 in Gernsheim am Rhein. After attending school in his home country, he was matriculated at the University of Erfurt in 1444 and 1448 ; at the Sorbonne in Paris he studied either law or theology . In 1449 he worked as a scribe and calligrapher in the French metropolis, as evidenced in the colophon (closing script) of a manuscript from that year in which he calls himself Petrus de Gernsheim alias Moguntia . Back in Germany, Peter Schöffer appeared in Mainz around 1452 as a typographer and printer and collaborator on Gutenberg's 42-line Bible .

Johannes Gutenberg borrowed money several times from the Mainz businessman and lawyer Johannes Fust , for which he secured a partnership in his work in return. In 1455 Fust sued Gutenberg. The reason was money that he should have embezzled. In the process, which is partially documented by Ulrich Helmasperger's notarial instrument , Peter Schöffer appeared as a witness. After Johannes Fust took over part of the Gutenberg workshop, Schöffer initially became workshop manager and later owner. He also became Fust's son-in-law.

As an employee of Gutenberg, Schöffer had a much higher social and internal position than that of an assistant. Schöffer was the author of technical and aesthetic improvements to the letters and developed his own printing types. Today it is even said that he surpassed Gutenberg as a typographer and printer. In 1462 a printer's signature with his name appeared for the first time in the colophon of the 48-line Bible . The last work with the joint company name of Fust and Schöffer was Ciceros De officiis , completed in 1466. Schöffer married Fust's daughter (not before 1462). Fust died in 1466 and Schöffer took over the printing company. In the following year, a partial volume of the Summa of Thomas Aquinas appeared , in which the Gernsheimer operated as the sole printer and publisher. The last work from his shop was the fourth edition of the Mainz Psalter , completed on December 20, 1502. His death is attested between this date and April 8, 1503.

Today, Peter Schöffer is seen as one of the best printers, publishers and booksellers in Europe, who explored artistic boundaries and whose business prowess opened up the international book market for intellectual debates and mass communication. The Offizin Schöffer be more attributed than 250 broadsheets and books. From 1470 Schöffer worked with illuminators who are now grouped under the emergency name of the Mainz Giant Bible workshop .

Around 1470/71 Schöffer acquired the Hof zum Humbrecht in Mainz, which was later called Schöfferhof. From 1489 until his death in 1503 Peter Schöffer was a secular judge in Mainz. With his wife Christina, geb. Fust, Peter Schöffer had four sons: Gratian Schöffer set up his own print shop in Oestrich . Peter Schöffer's second son, Peter Schöffer the Younger , also became a well-known printer of music in Mainz, Worms, Strasbourg, Basel and Venice. Peter Schöffer's son Johann Schöffer followed him in the management of the printing company. He contributed greatly to the confusion surrounding the invention of printing by claiming at length in 1509 and 1515 that his grandfather Johannes Fust was the inventor of it. Peter Schöffer also had a daughter, Catharina, who was married to Botho Bothe, a son of Konrad Bote , the possible author of the Cronecken der Sassen , the last major printed work from Peter Schöffer's office. The German-Swedish political scientist at Uppsala University Johannes Scheffer (1621–1679) traced his ancestry back to Peter Schöffer.

Significant works

From the Psalterium Benedictinum , 1459: with printed initials and notes entered by hand

Important works by Peter Schöffer are the Mainz Psalter of 1457, one of the most valuable printed works of all time (together with Johannes Fust), for which three-color printing was carried out for the first time ; the 48-line Bible from 1462 (also together with Fust), the Herbarius Latinus (1484, the first herbal book printed in Germany and - after the Roman Pseudo-Apuleius print of 1481/1483 - the first illustrated herbal book incunable), the by Johann Wonnecke von Kaub wrote Hortus sanitatis (German under the title: Gart der Gesuntheit ) from 1485 (the first printed herbal book in German) and the Cronecken der Sassen from 1492.

The printer's signature used by Schöffer and Fust was used by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels with the addition "BV" on the left from 1952 to 1986. It is still used today as an official emblem by the International Association of Printing House Craftsman ( IAPHC ), an association by printers, graphic designers and artists as well as representatives of the printing and art industry.

The prints of the dark man's letters , Epistolae obscurorum virorum from 1515 are assigned to the workshop of Peter Schöffer.

technology

With the Mainz Psalter , Schöffer tried to simplify book production by not only giving the printer the job of the scribe, but also that of the rubricator . Analogous to the production of manuscripts, the printers otherwise only delivered unrubrated products with blank spaces in which the buyer could have a rubricator insert colored initials according to his own taste and price.

Peter Schöffer printed his Psalter with black, red and blue letters. This enabled the book to be brought directly from the press to the bookbinder . However, this technology did not catch on because it was too complex and therefore expensive. On the one hand, coloring by hand remained in use until the 18th century. On the other hand, a new, simpler book aesthetic soon developed that could do without color as the legacy of medieval manuscript culture.

monument

In 1836, the Darmstadt court sculptor Johann Baptist Scholl created the Schöffer monument for Gernsheim, one of the sights of this city ( 49 ° 45 ′ 7.3 ″  N , 8 ° 28 ′ 55.2 ″  E ). In 2003, on the occasion of the 500th year of death, the town in southern Hesse was officially named "Schöfferstadt".

The wheat beer of the “Schöfferhofer” brand is named after Peter Schöffer's former house, the Mainz “Schöfferhof”, where the brewery was founded, and is adorned with a portrait of the namesake. The Schöfferhofer brand , however, came from the brewery of the same name in Mainz, which was also known as the Dreikönigshof brewery .

literature

  • Carl Christoffer Gjörrwell: Om Pet. Schöffer, Schefferska Ättens Stamfader, och om samma Ätts Utgrenande . In: Eric Michael Fant: Minne öfver Joh. Schefferus , Eloq. och Polit. Professor Skyttianus ... i Upsala . Carlbohm, Stockholm 1782, pp. 71–89 ( Google Books )
  • Carola Schneider: Peter Schöffer, Books for Europe . Exhibition catalog. Gutenberg Society, Mainz 2003, ISBN 3-9805506-7-2
  • Lotte Hellinga: Johann Fust, Peter Schoeffer and Nicolas Jenson . In: Gutenberg-Jahrbuch (2003), pp. 16–21.
  • Eberhard König: Illumination in Mainz at the time of Gutenberg, Fust and Schöffer . In: Wolfgang Dobras (ed.): Gutenberg. event and art. From secret company to the first media revolution. Mainz 2000, pp. 572-583.
  • Lotte Hellinga: Peter Schoeffer and his organization. A bibliographical investigation of the ways an early printer worked , in: Biblis 1995/96 (1997), pp. 67-106.
  • Konrad Dahl: Peter Schöffer von Gernsheim, the co-inventor of the art of printing, a historical sketch . Wiesbaden, available from Ludwig Schellenberg, 1814, as an e-book
  • Adolph Lange: Peter Schöffer von Gernsheim, the book printer and bookseller . Ed. Bernh. Hermann, Leipzig 1864, available as an e-book
  • Peter Schöffer: Herbarius Latinus . Mainz, 1484 (1 CD-ROM for Mac / PC; PDF file, based on the copy from the Erlangen-Nuremberg University Library , Trew Collection ). Harald Fischer Verlag, Erlangen 2005, ISBN 3-89131-430-2
  • Michael Giesecke : Book Printing in the Early Modern Era: A Historical Case Study on the Implementation of New Information and Communication Technologies . (= stw; 1357). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-518-28957-8
  • Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt : Peter Schöffer from Gernsheim and Mainz . Reichert, Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 3-89500-210-0 (translation of the Rochester edition, NY 1950, digitized version of the original edition )
  • Aloys Ruppel : Peter Schöffer from Gernsheim. Lecture on the centenary of the construction of the Schöfferdenkmal, given in the town hall of Gernsheim on September 27, 1936 . Gutenberg Society, Mainz 1937
  • Severin Corsten :  Schöffer, Peter the Elder. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 359 ( digitized version ).
  • Antonius van der Linde :  Schöffer, Peter the Elder . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 32, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1891, p. 213 f.
  • Rudolf Schmidt: German bookseller. German book printer. Contributions to a company history of the German book industry . Buchdruckerei Franz Weber, Berlin, 1902–1908, 1st to 6th vol. ( Online at Zeno org. )

Web links

Schöffers printing works:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lehmann-Haupt (1950/2002), p. 7
  2. ↑ Hellinga 1997. King 2000.
  3. ^ Johannes Scheffer: Ioannis Schefferi Argentoratensis vita . (Äldre Svenska biography 1. Uppsala universitets årsskrift 1915, volume 2). Almqvist & Wiksell, Uppsala 1915, pp. 3-36, especially p. 7 ( digitized version in the Internet Archive).
  4. ↑ Ortus sanitatis uff teutsch a garden of health. Peter Schöffer, Mainz 1485; Reprint Munich 1966.
  5. ↑ Helga Schnabel-Schüle : Reformation. Historical and cultural studies manual. Metzler, Heidelberg 2017, ISBN 978-3-476-02593-7 , p. 107.
  6. ^ Royal Librarian in Stockholm.
personal data
SURNAME Schöffer, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schoiffer, Petrus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION first bookseller and publisher in the age of book printing
DATE OF BIRTH around 1425
PLACE OF BIRTH Gernsheim am Rhein
DATE OF DEATH around 1503
Place of death Mainz