Peter Schöffer or
Petrus Schoeffer (c. 1425 in
GernsheimGernsheim is a town in Groß-Gerau district and Darmstadt region in Hesse, Germany, lying on the Rhine.- Location :The Schöfferstadt Gernsheim, as Gernsheim may officially call itself – it was Peter Schöffer's birthplace – lies 18 km southwest of Darmstadt and 16 km northeast of Worms,...
,
Groß-GerauGroß-Gerau is a Kreis in the south of Hesse , Germany. Neighboring districts are Main-Taunus, district-free Frankfurt, Darmstadt-Dieburg, Bergstraße, Alzey-Worms, Mainz-Bingen, and the district-free cities Mainz and Wiesbaden....
- 1503
MainzMainz is a city in Germany and the capital of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It was a politically important seat of the Prince-elector of Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the...
) was an early German printer, who studied in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and worked as a manuscript copyist in 1451 before apprenticing with
Johannes GutenbergJohannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was a German goldsmith and printer who is credited with being the first European to use movable type printing, in around 1439, and the global inventor of the mechanical printing press...
and joining
Johann FustJohann Fust , was an early German printer.- Family background :Fust belonged to a rich and respectable burgher family of Mainz, traceable back to 1423; members of the family held many civil and religious offices....
, a goldsmith, lawyer, and money lender.
Working for Fust, Schöffer was the principal workman of
Johannes GutenbergJohannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was a German goldsmith and printer who is credited with being the first European to use movable type printing, in around 1439, and the global inventor of the mechanical printing press...
, inventor of Western
typographyTypography is the art and technique of arranging type, type design, and modifying type glyphs. Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques...
, whose 42-Line Bible was completed in 1455.
Peter Schöffer or
Petrus Schoeffer (c. 1425 in
GernsheimGernsheim is a town in Groß-Gerau district and Darmstadt region in Hesse, Germany, lying on the Rhine.- Location :The Schöfferstadt Gernsheim, as Gernsheim may officially call itself – it was Peter Schöffer's birthplace – lies 18 km southwest of Darmstadt and 16 km northeast of Worms,...
,
Groß-GerauGroß-Gerau is a Kreis in the south of Hesse , Germany. Neighboring districts are Main-Taunus, district-free Frankfurt, Darmstadt-Dieburg, Bergstraße, Alzey-Worms, Mainz-Bingen, and the district-free cities Mainz and Wiesbaden....
- 1503
MainzMainz is a city in Germany and the capital of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It was a politically important seat of the Prince-elector of Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the...
) was an early German printer, who studied in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and worked as a manuscript copyist in 1451 before apprenticing with
Johannes GutenbergJohannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was a German goldsmith and printer who is credited with being the first European to use movable type printing, in around 1439, and the global inventor of the mechanical printing press...
and joining
Johann FustJohann Fust , was an early German printer.- Family background :Fust belonged to a rich and respectable burgher family of Mainz, traceable back to 1423; members of the family held many civil and religious offices....
, a goldsmith, lawyer, and money lender.
Working for Fust, Schöffer was the principal workman of
Johannes GutenbergJohannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was a German goldsmith and printer who is credited with being the first European to use movable type printing, in around 1439, and the global inventor of the mechanical printing press...
, inventor of Western
typographyTypography is the art and technique of arranging type, type design, and modifying type glyphs. Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques...
, whose 42-Line Bible was completed in 1455. In 1455 he testified for Johann Fust against Gutenberg. By 1457 he and Fust had formed the firm
Fust and Schöffer, after the foreclosure of the mortgage on Gutenberg's printing workshop.
Famous works include the
Latin Psalter of 1457, Cicero's
De officiis (1465), and
Herbarius - Rogatu plurimorum... (1484), usually referred to as the
"Herbarius latinus". The
Herbarius was compiled from older sources and was popular enough to go through ten reprints before 1499. It illustrates and describes 150 plants and 96 medicines commonly found in apothecaries. There is reason to believe that Schöffer himself commissioned the compilation, although the name of the compiler is not recorded. Schöffer is considered the author of many innovations such as dating books, introducing the printer's device and Greek characters in print, developing the basics of
punchcuttingIn traditional typography, punchcutting is the craft of cutting letter punches in steel from which matrices were made in copper for type founding in the letterpress era. Cutting punches and casting type was the first step of traditional typesetting. The cutting of letter punches was a highly...
and
type-foundingA type foundry is a company that designs and/or distributes typefaces. Originally, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and Monotype machines designed to be printed on letterpress printers...
, and using colored inks in print.
After going into business on his own, Schöffer confined his publishing to works on theology, and civil and ecclesiastic law.
Schöffer married Fust's only daughter, Christina, and his sons also entered the printer's trade. His son John carried on as printer between 1503 and 1531, was competent, but did not rank with the top printers of that time. Another son, Peter the younger, was an able die-cutter and printer, and conducted business in
MainzMainz is a city in Germany and the capital of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It was a politically important seat of the Prince-elector of Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the...
(1509-23),
WormsWorms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River. At the end of 2004, it had 85,829 inhabitants.Established by the Celts who called it Borbetomagus, Worms today remains embattled with the cities Trier and Cologne over title of "Oldest City in Germany"...
(1512-29),
Strasburg-Places:*Strasbourg , Alsace *Straßburg, Austria, in Carinthia*Strasburg, Germany, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania*the former name of Brodnica, since 1945 Poland*Strassburg, the German name for Aiud, Alba United States...
(1530-39) and
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
(1541-42). In 1526, Peter Schöffer the younger published the first English New Testament in
WormsWorms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River. At the end of 2004, it had 85,829 inhabitants.Established by the Celts who called it Borbetomagus, Worms today remains embattled with the cities Trier and Cologne over title of "Oldest City in Germany"...
, translated by
William TyndaleWilliam Tyndale was a 16th-century Protestant reformer and scholar who, influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther, translated considerable parts of the Bible into the Early Modern English of his day...
. Peter the younger's son Ivo, continued the printing business at Mainz (1531-55).
Schöfferhofer is a brand of German wheat beer named for the former house of Peter Schöffer (the house was called the
Mainzer Schöfferhof) in which a
breweryA brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made in the home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....
was founded. This brand of beer sports a portrait of Peter Schöfferhofer as its trademark. The Schöfferhofer brand originates from this brewery in
MainzMainz is a city in Germany and the capital of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It was a politically important seat of the Prince-elector of Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the...
, which is also known as the
Brauerei Dreikönigshof.
External links