Lotter was the last name of a family of

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

printers, intimately connected with the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

. The founder of the family was Melchior Lotter, the elder, born at Aue, and well-known at

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

as early as 1491. He published

missal A missal is a liturgical book containing instructions and texts necessary for the celebration of Mass throughout the liturgical year. Versions differ across liturgical tradition, period, and purpose, with some missals intended to enable a prie ...

s, breviaries, a ''

Persius Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satires, he shows a Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he considered to be the stylistic abuses of hi ...

'' (1512), ''Horatii Epistolæ'' (1522), and ''Luther Tessaradecos Consolatoria pro Laborantibus'' (1520). His relations with the Reformation are not perfectly clear, but he seems to have been a sympathizer. An innovation by the elder Lotter was his use of Roman types for

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

, reserving the Gothic types for

. His son was also named Melchior (died c. 1542), which has resulted in some bibliographical confusion. Melchior, the younger, is best known for printing

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...

's Bible, '' Das Neue Testament'' (1522), and the impressions of 1523 and 1524 of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

, which was transferred afterward to Hans Lufft. He published many other German writings of Luther. Only a little less important was his bringing a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mo ...

Wittenberg Wittenberg ( , ; Low Saxon: ''Wittenbarg''; meaning ''White Mountain''; officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg (''Luther City Wittenberg'')), is the fourth largest town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Wittenberg is situated on the River Elbe, north of ...

, thus giving

Melanchthon Philip Melanchthon. (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lu ...

the means to carry on classes in Greek. When he returned to Leipzig, about 1525, Lotter carried on his father's business.

Works

Antiqua et insignis Epistola Nicolai Papa I., ad Michaelem Imperatorem. . . https://books.google.es/books?id=GeBKAAAAcAAJ&pg=false#v=onepage&q&f=false

References

*J. Franck, in ''Allegemeine deutsche Biographie'', v. xix (Leipzig, 1884) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lotter, Melchior German printers German publishers (people) 15th-century births 16th-century births 16th-century deaths 1542 deaths German families