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Johannes Gutenberg, despite being a man who died bankrupt in relative anonymity, can perhaps be considered the father of the information age. It was he, a German goldsmith, who is credited with inventing a moveable-type printing system upon which he rolled out the first mass-produced bible, and in so doing revolutionised the storage and transmission of information.
Gutenberg lived as he died, an undefined entity about whom little is known. What is known is that he was born into the family of a partician in Mainz, but, following a dispute between the guilds and patricians, his family moved to Strassburg in 1428. Gutenberg flirted with a number of crafts including metalwork, gem cutting and part-time teaching.
Requiring finance for his ambitious plans, Gutenberg took in a number of investors. A contract was drawn up between him and three others in 1438; Hans Riffe, Andreas Dritzehn and Andreas Heilmann wherein the three men provided capital for the development of some new enterprise which Gutenberg chose to keep secret. The trial eventually resulted in a high-profile legal case wherein the men demanded to be made partners, a case which they lost but which threw up details of the Gutenberg's plans.
Gutenberg absorbed himself in the enterprise for over a decade, surfacing in 1450 to borrow the considerable amount of 800 guilders from wealthy businessman Johann Fust. In 1452, Fust lent Gutenberg a further 800 guilders in return for a share in the enterprise, a move which he later regretted as Gutenberg vaccilated and sweated over his new enterprise for a further three years.
Dissatisfied with the time taken to produce results, Fust took Gutenberg to court, winning back the sum total of the two loans plus interest.
Soon afterwards, the result that Fust had been waiting for was revealed to the world. Gutenberg had typeset and printed 200 bibles, a painstaking process using a range of methods. Gutenberg, however, appears to have fallen at the last hurdle.
It was this last lawsuit by Fust that crippled him as it transfered ownership of Gutenberg's printing press to Fust, who then continued to print using the press.
Reports are varied indicating that Gutenberg died either in poverty or destitute, but it is unlikely that he died as a pauper.
In 1465, a decade after the rollout of the invention that should have ensured Gutenberg's lifelong prosperity, the archbishop of Mainz pensioned him off, providing him with an annual ration of food and clothing and exempting him from specific tax obligations.
As it is, an estimate of his financial status at the time of his death provided no real clue as to his status, suffice to say that it was less than one would have credited the inventor of the modern printing press.
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