The Book That Changed the WorldA complete reprint of the revolutionary Gutenberg Bible The printing press has been called the greatest invention of the second millennium. Published in Mainz around 145
The Last KnightThe legendary tales of Emperor Maximilian, the first ruler to employ the new possibilities of book printingThe amazing tales of the knight Theuerdank and his companion, Ehrenhold, comprise the last great epic verse of the late Middle Ages. The courageous knight’s journey to woo his future wife, Mary of Burgundy, and his triumph in battles and other perilous acts of bravery are the focus of this highly embellished "real-life" story of Emperor Maximilian I (1459–1519).A king of Germany before becoming Holy Roman Emperor in 1508, Maximilian was a great patron of the arts and commissioned a trilogy of luxurious illustrated books to immortalize his existence. Theuerdank, the only volume to be published during his lifetime, was composed by Melchior Pfinzing based on Maximilian’s rather fanciful draft. The 118 ornate, gold-adorned woodcuts—one for each chapter—were made by Hans Burgkmair the Elder, Hans Schäufelein, and Leonhard Beck, while the typeface (known as the Theuerdank
1493's must-have history book and city guide by Hartmann Schedel Hartmann Schedel’s Weltchronik, or Chronicle of the World (better known today as the Nuremberg Chronicle, after the German city in
Only 50 years after Gutenberg introduced moveable type, over 1,000 workshops were printing maps, science books, and pocket editions of romances for private reading. Soon even the less fortunate had ho
