or GUTENBERG, JOHANN (whose real name was Gensfleisch), was born at Sorgenloch, near Mentz, in 1397. It is now generally admitted that to him is due almost the entire credit of inventing the art of printing by moveable types. The respective claims of Fust, Gutenberg, and Schoeffer, are fully discussed under FUST.

Gutenberg, after a life of much suffering and hardship, died at Mentz in 1468, in great poverty. Posterity has done him the justice denied him by his contemporaries. The statue by Thorwaldsen, erected in his honour at Mentz in 1837, furnished an example which has since been followed by many towns in Germany. The Gutenberg Society keeps his name in memory by an annual festival. No books are extant that are known for certain to have been printed by Gutenberg. The famous Mazarin Bible, Donatus' Grammar, and the Catholicon of Janua, are believed to have issued from his press. (See PRINTING.)