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 ...

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.

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(Latin). 1591 births 1664 deaths German scholars Bibliophiles {{Germany-academic-bio-stub