A page from the Gutenberg Bible
Gutenberg
and his printing press
The Arts & Entertainment network (A&E) in their Biography series proclaimed Johannes Gutenberg the person of the millenium. Is his contribution the greatest of the last thousand years? The "top five" included Isaas Newton at number 2, Martin Luther, Charles Darwin, and William Shakespeare. The accountants' choice, Luca Pacioli, did not make the list! Of course, the influence of Pacioli depended on printed copies of his major work, Summa, which spread the use of double entry accounting across Europe. Therefore, Gutenberg has had a tremendous influence on accounting for the last 500 years. What is his story?
Johannes Gutenberg (1397-1468) was a German goldsmith who has born, achieved his fame, and died in Mainz. His drive to innovate apparently was caused by continued indebtedness--achieve super wealth by invention and pay off creditors. He created molds for uniform letter using a lead alloy. These were to be sold as trinkets. However, by arranging these interchangeable letter into a wooden frame a parchment or vellem page could be produced. He developed a printing press to make multiple copies (adapting the screw press used to produce olive oil) and the mass production of books has born. To get out of debt he formed a partnership to produce 200 2-volume copies of the Bible on vellum. About 50 of these masterpeices survive. Apparently, it was not successful enough to avoid bankruptcy and he lost the press to his creditors.
A page from the Gutenberg Bible