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The Gutenberg Museum Mainz

Opposite the cathedral in the heart of the old part of Mainz in Germany lies theGutenberg Museum.

It is one of the oldest museums of printing in the world and attracts experts andtourists from all corners of the globe.

In 1900, 500 years after Gutenbergs birth, a group of citizens founded the museum inMainz. They wanted to honour the inventor, todays man of the millennium, andpresent his technical and artistic achievements to the public at large. They also aimedto exhibit the writing and printing of as many different cultures as possible.

To help launch the museum, a number of publishers, manufacturers of printingmachines and printing houses donated books, apparatus and machines. These formedthe basis of the collection. In its first few years the museum was part of the city library,meaning that the most beautiful and characteristic volumes from the librarys extensive

collection could be requisitioned for the museum. Visitors were thus presented with asurvey of almost 500 years of the printed book. In time the museum expanded toinclude sections on printing techniques, book art, job printing and ex-libris, graphicsand posters, paper, the history of writing of all cultures of the world and modern artistsbooks.The Gutenberg Museum was originally laid out in two rooms at the Kurfrstliches Schloin Mainz, which also accommodated the city library. The museum moved into the newlibrary building on the Rheinallee in 1912.

The Gutenberg Workshop

The same year, 1925, saw the installation of a reconstruction of Gutenbergs workshop

which soon became one of the museums main attractions. Type founding, typesettingand printing could now be demonstrated visually. The replicaof Gutenbergs printing press, rebuilt according 15th- and 16th-century woodcuts,proved an object of great interest to visitors and was henceforth shown at a largenumber of exhibitions all over the world.

A House in the Heart of Town

In 1927 the museum was able to move into the Rmischer Kaiser (1664), one of themost beautiful buildings in Mainz. This is now where the museums administration, the

restoration workshop, library and Gutenberg Society are housed. When the LateRenaissance building was heavily bombed in 1945, all dreams of enlarging the museumwere at first shattered; luckily, the museums contents had been stored in a safe placeand thus remained intact.

2,000th anniversary

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In 1962, the year Mainz celebrated its 2,000th anniversary, the restoration of theRmischer Kaiser was complete and the building ready for use again. A new, modernexhibition building was also opened, constructed with money donated by a number ofgenerous sponsors.

New Acquisitions

The museum made several important acquisitions in the following years, among them asecond Gutenberg Bible, the Shuckburgh Bible in two volumes (1978), and two blockbooks printed using wooden formes and today extremely rare. Another major changewas the introduction of the Print Shop (Druckladen), the museums educational unit, in1989. The museum also stages guided tours and lectures.

Restoration and Extension in 2000

A century after its founding, on the 600th anniversary of Gutenbergs birth the oldmuseum building was restored and extended with the help of the state Rhineland-

Palatinate, the city of Mainz, the Gutenberg Sponsorship Association (FrdervereinGutenberg) and numerous private companies and citizens of Mainz. The museumexhibits are now in a more up-to-date, lively setting.Visitors to the museum can enjoy an excellent array of permanent exhibits and frequentspecial exhibitions, browse around an innovative museum shop and relax in thepleasant museum caf.