| Gutenberg Notes
| Early Years | The
Strasbourg Years | Partnership
with Fust |
| Jobbing | Guttenberg Bible | Break
Up With Fust | The Later Years |
Print Shop |
Gutenberg
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It was in Strasbourg that Gutenberg began experimenting with the creation
of moveable type and the printing process. However, he had to make a living
while doing this so progress was slow. With the scant records available
of this time period in his life, it is generally held that Gutenberg made
his living as a craftsman and merchant. He traded in wine which would make
an excellent cover for his work with printing. Wine dealing was an ordinary
business which would go unnoticed and provided Gutenberg with access to
wine presses which could very easily be adapted for the printing process.
The only clue to Gutenberg's activity in the printing process comes
from a recorded dispute he had with a partnership between three Strasbourg
men, Hans Riffe, Andres Heilmann and Andres Dritzehen. He had agreed to
teach a process he had invented to these three partners in return for a
fee and large loans of money. This process was to be kept a secret and
if one of the partners should die, Gutenberg maintained the right to buy
out their share of the business. Gutenberg and his partners quarrelled
and a court case was brought in 1439. Although the secret process was not
discussed in the trial, the fact that some of the money had been used to
buy lead and other metals along with a press were clues to the nature of
the "secret" process. When Andres Dritzehen died suddenly at
Christmas 1438, Gutenberg sent anxious messages to his house ordering that
a mysterious piece of equipment should be taken apart. Apparently housed
in Andres' house was a tool which was a vital part of the secret process
developed by Gutenberg. It was said to consist of four parts which when
screwed together would reveal the secret. It was never found. However,
something that had been made using this tool was ordered melted down.
It is speculated that this mysterious tool which dissappeared was a
means that Gutenberg had developed for ensuring that each shape of a casting
form for individual letters would be accurate enough to make each piece
of type exactly the same height. By making two L-shaped pieces which slid
into each other and thereby adjusted the space between them, Gutenberg
was able to accomodate the needed accuracy of the height of the letters
as well as alter the form to cope with the different widths of certain
letters of the alphabet (i.e. an "m" is wider than an "i").
The letter face would be cast in the bottom of this L-shaped casting and
the spacing would form the top of an L-shaped casting.
