Bernhard von Mallinckrodt (29 November 1591 in
Ahlen
Ahlen (; Westphalian: ''Aulen'') is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, 30 km southeast of Münster. Ahlen is part of the District of Warendorf and is economically the most important town in that district. Ahlen is part of the larger ...
— 7 March 1664, Burg Ottenstein), dean (''Domdechant'') of
Münster Cathedral, was a
bibliophile
Bibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books. A bibliophile or bookworm is an individual who loves and frequently reads and/or collects books.
Profile
The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often ama ...
from a noble family of Protestants, who converted to Catholicism.
In 1639 he issued a
pamphlet at
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
to mark the bicentenary of the invention of
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...
by
moveable type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation m ...
in Europe, defending the priority of
Gutenberg
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (; – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and craftsman who introduced letterpress printing to Europe with his movable-type printing press. Though not the first of its kind, earlier designs w ...
; it was titled ("Of the rise and progress of the typographic art"), that includes the phrase , "the first infancy of printing". This gave rise to the term ''
incunabula'', which is still used to describe books and broadsheets printed before 1500, the arbitrary cut-off date selected by Mallinckrodt.
[Jacqueline Glomski, "Incunabula Typographiae: Seventeenth-Century Views on Early Printing" ''The Library'' 2.4 (2001 :336-348) sets Mallinckrodt's dissertation in cultural setting.]
Notes
External links
*Full text o
(Latin).
1591 births
1664 deaths
German scholars
Bibliophiles
{{Germany-academic-bio-stub