Johannes Gutenberg

Johannes Gutenberg was born in Mainz, Germany, to a merchant family, and trained as a metalworker. Little is known of his early life; records show him in Strasbourg in the 1430s, involved in business ventures and a secret project. Back in Mainz around 1450, with money borrowed from the lawyer Johann Fust, he perfected a system of printing with movable type. Its key parts were a hand mold for casting many identical metal letters quickly, a metal alloy that melted and hardened well, an oil-based ink that stuck to metal, and a screw press adapted from those used for wine and paper. Around 1455 his workshop finished the famous Gutenberg Bible, printed in Latin in two columns, of which about fifty copies survive today. Fust then sued him to recover the loan and took over much of the equipment. Gutenberg continued printing on a smaller scale and in 1465 was given a pension by the archbishop of Mainz. He died in 1468. Within fifty years printing presses had spread across Europe, producing millions of books.

Faith: Faith not well documented; a Catholic of Mainz whose most famous work is the printed Bible. Source: Wikipedia