Type After Gutenberg: A Historical Sketch

Carl Shank • November 8, 2025

What Happened to Type After Gutenberg?

A Brief Historical Sketch from 1460-1640


At the end of the 15th century, German printing was at the forefront of a revolutionary transformation in Europe, driven by the invention of the movable-type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century. This development had a profound impact on culture, education, and the dissemination of knowledge. By the end of the century, Germany had become one of the key centers of printing in Europe, particularly in cities like Mainz, Nuremberg, and Augsburg.


Books printed before 1501 are referred to as incunabula. German printers produced a significant portion of the incunabula, with many focusing on religious texts such as the Bible, liturgical works, and theological treatises. Secular works, including classical texts, legal documents, and scientific works, also gained prominence towards the end of the century.


German printers played a key role in developing early typefaces. One of the most popular was Blackletter (also called Gothic script or Fraktur), which dominated printed works in Germany during this period. The dense and elaborate script was particularly suited to religious and formal texts.


By 1500, there were over 1,000 printers operating in various German cities, making Germany a leading hub for the printing industry. Notable printing centers included: Mainz—The birthplace of Gutenberg’s press; Nuremberg — An important center for both printing and intellectual activity; and, Augsburg—A commercial and printing hub.


What is often lost in typographical history in the years closely following Gutenberg are the important printers and typographers in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Spain, England, Austria, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, Scotland, Mexico, Ireland and the United States who furthered the cause of typography and printed works. This Blog serves as a historical sketch of a number of these important people.


John Mentel

Timeline: 1460

Johannes Mentelin (1410–1478) was a pioneering German printer and bookseller. In 1466 he printed and published the first German language Bible in Strasbourg. Among the predominantly theological and philosophical works in Latin, he offered the Latin edition of the Bible in 1460 and 1463, works of Augustine, Aquinas, Aristotle, John Chrysostom, Jerome and Albertus Magnus. Although Mentelin cannot be cited as the inventor of the art of printing books, he was nevertheless one of the most skillful of the early typographers.


H. Eggesteyn was a partner for some time with the printer Mentel at Strasbourg. Both were thus contemporaries of Gutenburg (1400-1468) the inventor of metal types, and, therefore, must have derived their knowledge of the new art and mystery clandestinely, or otherwise, from him or from his partners, Fust and Schoeffer.



Mentel’s type is conspicuous by being a simplified Gothic round hand. Some original features occur in the capital letters, giving both flourishing Gothic and simple Roman lapidary style. 

Albrecht Pfister 

Timeline: 1461

Albrecht Pfister (1420–1466) was one of the first European printers to use moveable type, printing books in the German language and notably the first to use woodcuts in 1461 to illustrate German language books. He obtained the necessary printing types from Gutenberg’s workshop. These types were used in Bamberg in the late 1450s for a new edition of the Latin Bible, the second after Gutenberg’s own edition. He published and signed his works (unlike Gutenberg) which included two editions of the religious work, Der Ackermann aus Bohmen, in German, two editions of Ulrich Boner’s Der Edelstein in German, two editions of Biblia pauperum in German, a History of Joseph, Daniel, Judith and Esther in German and an edition of the Belial of Jacobus de Teramo in German.


He was heavily influenced by Gutenberg’s typefaces, but there are noticeable and subtle differences between the two. Note the Pfister type sample. “Incidentally, Pfister was among the first to print in the vernacular. Of the three editions of an illustrated Bible, Biblia pauperum, or Paupers’ Bible, that he published between 1462 and 1463, two were in German, one in Latin. Prior to its typographic appearance, the Biblia pauperum had already proven incredibly popular as a xylographic or blockbook.”[https://ilovetypography.com/2015/11/10/the-first-illustrated-books/)]

Ulrich Zell

Timeline: 1464

Zell learned printing from the establishment of Johann Fust and Peter Schoffer and was printing at Cologne as early as 1463. His printing works can be traced to 1502. About 120 of his publications are known. Most of his books were textbooks in quarto form for the university, along with an undated edition of the Latin Bible in two volumes. In 1489 he published St. Augustine, On The Trinity and the City of God in folio edition.


His type was similar to the Durandus and Clements types of Fust and Schoffer. What is historically important about Zell is his claim preserved in the Chronicle of Cologne in 1499 that 1450 was the very beginning of machine printing, that Gutenberg was the inventor, and that the first book printed was the Vulgate, or the Latin Bible.

Schweinheim & Pannartz

Timeline: 1465

Conrad Schweinheim (or Schwanheim or Sweynheim, died 1477) and Arnold Pannartz were ecclesiastics and the first printers of Italy. A printing press for books was established at the Abbey of Subiaco in 1464, moved to Rome in 1467. At Subiaco they published three books, Cicero’s De Oratore, the Opera of Lactantius and Augustine’s

 De Civitate Dei — The City of God. During 1464–72 they produced over 12,000 copies of thirty–seven works, mostly the classics and the Church fathers. Sweynheim was the typesetter of the outfit. In spite of their skill and printing volume, they needed and received papal monetary assistance. The two dissolved their partnership in 1472, with Sweynheim working until he died as engraver on the maps of the Cosmography of Ptolemy. He was the first to apply copper engraving to the maps. Sweynheim was in close connection with Mainz until his death.


The dies cut by Sweynheim embody the preliminary steps of the present type for Latin characters. His capitals are the first to show the forms used in Roman inscriptions on stone. His smaller letters repeat the characters used in manuscripts of the ninth to tenth centuries. He cast the first Greek type, found in his third book, that of Lactantius. Note the sample page with the use of Greek type from Divinarum institutionum libri septem printed in 1430. 


Günther Zainer 

Timeline: 1468

Gunther Zainer (died 1478) introduced printing to Augsburg, Germany in 1468. He produced about 80 books, including two German editions of the Bible and the first printed calendar. He also printed the first large illustrated book, Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea with 131 woodcuts.


Zainer used two Gothic types and three Romans. His Roman types are striking, with his first Roman of 1472 leaving behind the Gothic influences of early Roman typography. Note the “H” with the “pearl” in the crossbar.


Initial from the German Bible, printed by Zainer in Augsburg in 1477


John de Spira

Timeline: 1469

Along with his brother, Wendelin, John or Johann von Speyer (also de Spira) were German printers in Venice from 1468 to 1477. Early in 1460–61 Johann appears as a “goldsmith” and in September 1469 he was granted the first “monopoly” of printing in Venice by the Venetian Senate. He issued Cicero’s Epistolae ad familiars in 1469 and also the first edition of Pliny’s Historia naturalis. Johann died during the printing of Augustine’s De Civitae Dei with his brother completing it. In 1477 he published Mirror of the Virgin in Blackletter type.


As to the type, Spira 110R Proto-Roman was first used by Johann for Cicero’s work. See the sample offered with an Open Type license.


Ulrich Gering

Martin Crantz

Michael Friburger

Timeline: 1470

These three partners established the first printing press in France. Invited to Paris in 1469 by the Rector of the Sorbonne, Johann Heynlin, and his colleague Guillaume Fichet, Gering together with Michael Friburger and Martin Crantz set up a printing press within the Sorbonne to produce texts selected and edited by his patrons. The press produced twenty-two works between 1470 and 1472. Gering is thought to have made the first typeface in France in the 1470s.


The Martin Crantz font has been expanded to meet the demands of modern day use but it also contains a number of specialized glyphs that allow for the recreation of text in the manner of his day with such characters as the -rum abbreviation and other handy Renaissance oddities. Since this face was designed prior to 1501 there is no italic variant in keeping with the spirit of historical accuracy.


Bernado Cennini

Timeline: 1471

Bernardo Cennini (1414/15 – 1498) was an Italian goldsmith, sculptor and early printer of Florence, Italy. He produced the first book printed at Florence. Seeing some printed books, Cennini thought out the procedure for himself, cast his own type font, and working with others produced the first of the incunabula printed at Florence in 1471. The book was the Commentary of Virgil by Maurus Servius Honoratus. Rather than the predominant religious works of the period, early Florentine printing focused on classical texts, grammars and other humanistic works.


Colard Mansion

Timeline: 1474

Working in Bruges from 1457 to 1484, Colard Mansion produced many books and manuscripts, the most famous being De consolatione philosophiae (Consolation of Philosophy). The Cambridge copy is decorated beautifully by hand with illustrations based on those in a later edition printed by Arend de Keysere in Ghent in 1485 in Dutch. Scholars suggest that copies of de Keysere’s edition and this copy were probably decorated in the same workshop by a team of miniaturists. Mansion began printing in around 1475–6, collaborating with the English composer, William Caxton. 


He had two fonts and produced two formats of printed books, the medium-sized quarto and the large and luxurious folio. Twenty-three full texts survive his work.


William Caxton

Timeline: 1477

Caxton’s career actually began as a textile merchant in Bruges, becoming acting governor of the Merchant Adventurers in the Low Countries. His first translation was that of a popular French romance. He set up a printing press in Bruges and published his translation of The Recuyell, the first printed book in the English language. His printing of The Game and Play of Chess Moralised was the first printed book in English to make use of woodcuts. Returning to England in 1476, he set up a printing shop at Westminster and published a number of boks including The Canterbury Tales. Over the course of fourteen years, he printed more than 70 books.


In 1477 Dictes and Wise Sayings of the Philosophers was printed. The Pilgrimage of the Soul was printed in 1483 and served as one of the prototypes of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Caxton printed the Statutes of Henry VII in 1492, the first collection of English laws ever printed. They comprise the enactments of the first three Parliaments of Henry VII.


The typefaces used by Caxton were all varieties of blackletter or gothic type. His earlier works were set in an early form of French lettre bâtarde. By 1490, he had acquired a more round and open typeface, a textura originally used by the Parisian printer Antoine Verard and later favored by Caxton's successor, Wynkyn de Worde. Fonts named after Caxton were the Caxton Initials by Frederick Goudy in 1905 and the ITC Caxton Roman family.


Theoderic Rood

Timeline: 1478

Johann Snell 

Timeline: 1483

Rood was a printer of incunabula at Oxford, England between the years of 1481–1484. Johann Snell, a German printer, served his apprenticeship with the Brotherhood of St. Michael and was an independent printer and bookbinder in the 1480s. Bishop Karl Ronnov had him print a short prayer book, Breviarium Ottoniense, and he also printed De obsidione et bello Rhodiano, about the Turkish siege of the island of Rhodes. These are the first books printed in Denmark.


Androw Myllar

Timeline: 1507

Myllar was the first Scottish printer in the early 1500s. Myllar together with Walter Chepman were granted a patent by James IV to establish a printing press in Scotland. The first book known to have been printed in Scotland was The Complaint of the Black Knight.


Juan Cromberger

Timeline: 1540

The home of the first printing press and shop was at the corner of Moneda and Licenciado Primo Verdad streets in Mexico City in 1539. The Seville-based publisher, Juan Cromberger with an Italian printer Juan Pablos printed vice regal and Church related documents. At least thirty-five books came out of this shop between 1539 and 1560.


Humphrey Powell

Timeline: 1551

Printing was introduced to Ireland when the London printer Humphrey Powell as give twenty pounds by the King’s Privy Council in Westminster in 1571. The first book was his Boke of the common praier in 1551.


“Powell's Boke of the common praier was printed in English using Roman type. Twenty years later, Queen Elizabeth I, then monarch of England and Ireland, paid for a set of Irish type to be cut under the direction of John Kearney, the Treasurer of St Patrick's Cathedral. This type was used to print the first book printed in the Irish language, the Aibidil gaoidheilge, & caiticiosma, an Irish alphabet and catechism. Elizabeth I's purpose in supporting this venture was to promote the evangelization of the many Irish speakers among the island's population.”


Stephen Daye (1594–1668)

Timeline: 1639

Daye emigrated from England to the English colony of Massachusetts Bay, becoming with his son the first printer of colonial America. His press printed the Bay Psalm Book in 1640, the first book printed in the present day United States. More than a century after Daye's death, his legacy found renewed fame in Vermont, when his printing press came into the possession of printers Judah Spooner and Timothy Green, who used it to publish the state's first newspaper in Westminster, Vermont,  The Vermont Gazette, or Green Mountain Post-Boy, on February 12, 1781. In 1932 the Stephen Daye Press was instituted, publishing local poets and writers notable to Vermont history, including Elliott Merrick, Mark Whalon and Walter Hard. The press closed in December 1942.

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Theology of Type (3): The Twentieth Century (Part 2)

By Carl Shank • November 1, 2025
SWISS TYPE BEAUTY DESIGNERS LIKE JAN TSCHICHOLD were foundational to many of the Swiss design principles. This style evolved from Constructivist, De Stijl and Bauhaus design principles, particularly the ideas of grid systems, sans-serif type and minimalism. Emerging in Switzerland during the 1940s and 1950s, this typography, also known as the International Typographic Style, directly responded to the type chaos of Dada and the stylization of Art Deco. The Swiss style emphasized readability, visual harmony and universality. Clarity, objectivity and functionality were key components. Contributors included Max Miedinger, creator of the Helvetica typeface and Adrian Frutiger, creator of the Univers typeface, both in 1957. The Journey of Helvetica We all use Helvetica. In fact, some say it has been overused through modern years. Helvetica derives its powerful simplicity and display qualities from the 1896 typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk. “The design originates from Royal Grotesk light by Ferdinand Theinhardt who also supplied the regular, medium and bold weights. Throughout the years, Berthold has expanded this extremely popular and versatile family. AG Super was developed in 1968 by Günter Gerhard Lange and is an excellent choice for headlines. In 2001, Günter Gerhard Lange added more weights for Berthold including Super Italic and Extra Bold italic.”[1] “Helvetica is a twentieth-century Swiss revision of a late nineteenth­ century German Realist face. The first weights were drawn in 1956 by Max Miedinger, based on the Berthold Foundry’s old Odd-job Sans-serif, or Akzidenz Grotesk, as it is called in German. The heavy, unmodulated line and tiny aperture evoke an image of uncultivated strength, force and persistence. The very light weights issued in recent years have done much to reduce Helvetica’s coarseness but little to increase its readability.”[2]

Theology of Type (3): The Twentieth Century (Part 1)

By Carl Shank • November 1, 2025
CONSTRUCTIVISM (1915-1934) Typography in Constructivism was a rational, disciplined and ideologically charged tool. It served society, especially early Russian forces, and reflected the spirit of the machine age. Constructivism redefined the role of art, design, and typography. Unlike Dadaism’s chaos and anti-art stance, constructivism type, favoring horizontal and vertical axes, creating a clean, mathematical visual language, was highly rational, utilitarian, and politically driven. ChatGPT notes that the movement’s legacy endures in its clarity, structure and purpose-driven design that define much of modern typographic practice. Constructivist movement produced strong, sans-serif (without feet) fonts like the typeface molot . Like Dadaism in some aspect, typography was bold, in-your-face, promoting Suprematism’s geometric abstraction and Futurism’s emphasis on dynamism.[1]
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