page_title: Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweynheim
hierarchical_section_title: Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweynheim
caption_attribution_description: English: Early Roman typeface in 1465. Subiaco: Conradus Sweynheym and Arnoldus Pannartz. Typ.1:120R GfT549
context_page_description: Arnold Pannartz and Conrad Sweynheym were two printers of the 15th century.
  Pannartz died about 1476, Sweynheym in 1477. Pannartz was, perhaps, a native of Prague, and Sweynheym of Eltville near Mainz. Gottfried Zedler believed that Sweynheym worked at Eltville with Gutenberg in 1461-1464. Whether Pannartz had been connected with Sweynheym in Germany is not known. It is certain that the two brought Gutenberg's invention to Italy.
  The Benedictine abbey of Subiaco was the cradle of Italian printing. Probably Cardinal Giovanni of Turrecremata, who was Abbot in commendam of Subiaco, summoned the two printers there. They came in 1464. The first book that they printed at Subiaco was a Donatus; it has not, however, been preserved. The first book printed in Italy that is extant was a Cicero, De oratore, issued in September, 1465. It was followed by Lactantius, De divinis institutionibus, in October, 1465, and Augustine's De civitate Dei. These four impressions from Subiaco are of particular importance, because they abandon the Blackletter of the early German books. In Italy, Roman characters were demanded.
context_section_description: Arnold Pannartz and Conrad Sweynheym were two printers of the 15th century. 
  Pannartz died about 1476, Sweynheym in 1477. Pannartz was, perhaps, a native of Prague, and Sweynheym of Eltville near Mainz. Gottfried Zedler believed (Gutenberg-Forschungen, 1901) that Sweynheym worked at Eltville with Gutenberg in 1461-1464. Whether Pannartz had been connected with Sweynheym in Germany is not known. It is certain that the two brought Gutenberg's invention to Italy. 
  The Benedictine abbey of Subiaco was the cradle of Italian printing. Probably Cardinal Giovanni of Turrecremata, who was Abbot in commendam of Subiaco, summoned the two printers there. They came in 1464. The first book that they printed at Subiaco was a Donatus; it has not, however, been preserved. The first book printed in Italy that is extant was a Cicero, De oratore (now in the Buchgewerbehaus at Leipzig), issued in September, 1465. It was followed by Lactantius, De divinis institutionibus, in October, 1465, and Augustine's De civitate Dei (1467). These four impressions from Subiaco are of particular importance, because they abandon the Blackletter of the early German books. In Italy, Roman characters were demanded. Pannartz and Sweynheym, however, did not produce a pure but only a "half Roman" type with Blackletter-like characteristics. 
  In 1467, the two printers left Subiaco and settled at Rome, where the brothers Pietro and Francesco Massimo placed a house at their disposal. The same year, they published an edition of Cicero's letters that gave its name to the cicero, the Continental equivalent of the pica. Their proof and manuscript reader was Giovan de' Bussi, since 1469 Bishop of Aleria in Corsica. 
  The works they printed are given in two lists of their publications, issued in 1470 and 1472. Up to 1472, they had published twenty-eight theological and classical volumes, namely, the Bible, Lactantius, Cyprian, Augustine, Jerome, Leo the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Cicero, Apuleius, Gellius, Virgil, Livy, Strabo, Pliny, Quintilian, Suetonius, Ovid, etc., in editions varying from 275 to 300 copies each, in all 12,475 volumes. But the printers shared the fate of their master, Gutenberg; they could not sell their books, and fell into want.
  In 1472, they applied to Pope Sixtus IV for Church benefices. From this we know that both were ecclesiastics: Pannartz of Cologne and Sweynheym of Mainz. The pope had a reversion drawn up for them, a proof of his great interest in printing. In 1474, Sweynheym was made a canon at St. Victor at Mainz. It is not known whether Pannartz also obtained benefice. Perhaps the pope also aided them; at any rate, they printed eighteen more works in 1472 and 1473. After this they separated. Pannartz printed by himself thirteen further volumes. Sweynheym took up engraving on metal and executed the fine maps for the Cosmography of Ptolemy, the first work of this kind, but died before he had finished his task.
caption: Specimen of a typeface by Pannartz and Sweinheim, considered to be the earliest form of Roman type, c. 1465.
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