October 12, 2014.

It was around 10am when my publisher friends and I reached the Mainz Hauptbahnhof. We had travelled by train from Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof 38 minutes earlier. The air was cool and windy, and the sun was hiding. We had anticipated the weather and each of us wore thick jackets.

Not one of us were sure how to get to Gutenberg Museum and so we decided to depend on GPS on my mobile phone. I had bought a local sim card with data plan on the first day I arrived in Frankfurt. From my past travels to Frankfurt, I figured that it is a whole lot easier to get local card and get in touch with other people online while on the move. Besides, I am an avid Instagrammer and posting photos with the current location seemed more fun.

*For more info on the local sim card, read my post here.

Basically, we walked about 20 minutes and en-route the museum, I had captured a lot of photos that appealed to me. I am reliving the moment and invite you to take the walk with me now. Interested? Let’s walk.

This is Hotel Königshof Mainz, just opposite the train station.

Chairs opposite the hotel.

Berliner Gemüse Kebap, Große Bleiche. This was where we had our late lunch on the way back.

Somewhere at Steingasse Street.

 Pandora outlet at Schusterstrasse.

 Löwen Apotheke am Dom at Markt Square.

 Dom Cafe at Markt Square.

 Mainz Cathedral or St. Martin’s Cathedral at Markt Square. This 1000 year-old Roman Catholic cathedral is predominantly Romanesque in style, but later exterior additions over many centuries have resulted in the appearance of various architectural influences seen today.

La Maison du Pain, Markt Square that serves French pastries.

Overall, I have a total of 209 photos from Mainz but it is impossible to share all. Hehe. So let’s skip to the basic information about Mainz.

Mainz is famous for its university, its Roman heritage, its status as a media hub and regional capital, and its three most defining features: the Romanesque cathedral, the Gutenberg printing press and the Rhineland carnival. The people of Mainz have good reason to be proud of their city’s history spanning almost 2,000 years.

For over 1,000 years the city’s skyline has been dominated by one building, Mainz Cathedral. Towering majestically in its central location, the cathedral is one of the most important churches in Germany. Its foundation stone was laid in 975 AD under the aegis of Bishop Willigis. In its shadows lie the medieval and early modern quarters of Mainz.

The city is dominated by two architectural periods: the modern age, as evidenced by the town hall, the Hilton hotel and Rheingoldhalle complex, and the Renaissance-Baroque with the Neues Zeughaus, the Deutschordenshaus and the Electoral Palace. According to some art historians, the unusually ornate, nuanced design of the Electoral Palace’s facade surpasses even that of Heidelberg Castle.

Mainz also offers a wealth of fascinating museums. The Gutenberg Printing Museum and the Central Romano-Germanic Museum in the Electoral Palace stand out as the best in the city. The palace’s pre-history and early history collections, along with those on Roman and early medieval history, are complemented by large restoration workshops that enjoy an international reputation – even Ötzi the Iceman, found in the Alps, has paid a visit. An even broader spectrum, from the Stone Age to modern times, is explored at Mainz State Museum, founded in 1803 with 36 paintings donated by Napoleon.

The Cathedral and Diocesan Museum in the cathedral provides information about the history of the episcopal church and the bishopric. The Museum of Municipal History gives an extensive insight into the development of Mainz, while the Natural History Museum is the largest of its kind in Rhineland-Palatinate.

The Kunsthalle Mainz art gallery rounds off the museum highlights in impressive fashion: the strikingly redesigned building at the former customs port is now encased in glass and even features a sloped exhibition floor on a seven degree incline.

Source: http://www.germany.travel/en/towns-cities-culture/towns-cities/mainz.html

Last year in October, I went to Frankfurt again to attend the book fair but unlike previous years, I spent most of my time at the Malaysia Pavilion doing my things; drawing, introducing my books and talking to potential publishers.

The year before that, I was there for only few hours for few days while the other days were spent travelling around Frankfurt and Köln with my family. I did not make much networking hence the hard work the year after.

After working hard for few days, I guess I needed some sort of an escape to go to places I have not been; therefore decided to tag along with publisher friends to visit Gutenberg Museum on our second last day in Frankfurt. We took a free ride (ride was free as each of us had our Frankfurt Book Fair exhibitior pass) from Frankfurt to Mainz. The view was breathtaking along the 45 minutes ride.

Gutenberg Museum is a heaven for book lovers. It is one of the oldest museums of printing in the world and named after Johann Gutenberg, the inventor of printing using moveable metal type in Western Europe. The collections inside the museum include printing equipment and examples of printed materials from many cultures.

The museum was founded by a group of citizens in 1900, 500 years after Johann Gutenberg’s birth, to honour the inventor and present his technical and artistic achievements to the public at large.

The exhibition in the museums includes the history of Johannes Gutenberg, Gutenberg Bible, Early printings 15th C., Letterpress 16th-18th C., Letterpress 19th-20th C., Paper, History of the manuscript, Book Cover, Children’s Books, Newspaper and Press, Islamic Book Art, Script and printing is East Asia and Gutenberg’s workshop. Check out here why is Matthew 18:11 missing?

Johannes Gutenberg

Little is known about the life of Johann Gutenberg, including his actual year of birth. For example, we do not know if he was married or had children. Even the famous engraved portraits of Gutenberg were made long after his death and are based on the artist’s imagination, not on Gutenberg’s actual appearance.

The few known facts about Gutenberg’s life originate from a handful of legal and financial papers. These papers reveal that he was born Johann Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany and moved to Strasbourg sometime before 1434. Legal records show that he and a partner produced metal hand mirrors used by pilgrims visiting holy sites. His metal-working skills must have been useful to him as he developed a method of making metal type for printing.

Sometime between 1444 and 1448, Gutenberg returned to Mainz and it was likely that he spent this time developing his new printing method, as some scholars believe, that took at least ten years to develop.

Little is known about Gutenberg’s later years, except that he was financially supported by the Archbishop of Mainz and may have lived comfortably until his death in 1468.

Gutenberg Bible

The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the first major book printed in the West using movable type. It marked the start of the “Gutenberg Revolution” and the age of the printed book in the West. Widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities, the book has an iconic status. Written in Latin, the Gutenberg Bible is an edition of the Vulgate, printed by Johannes Gutenberg, in Mainz, in present-day Germany, in the 1450s. Forty-eight copies, or substantial portions of copies, survive, and they are considered to be among the most valuable books in the world, even though no complete copy has been sold since 1978.

Gutenberg Bible. Source: http://www.gutenberg-museum.de/41.0.html?&L=1

The height of Gutenberg’s art of printing is considered to be the 42-line bible (B42). The 2-volume bible with a total of 1,282 pages was created with the help of 20 staff. The colorful initials and signs were added later by an illuminator and a columnist. Today, 49 copies remain in existence. Of these, two are owned by the Gutenberg museum.

To view more of the The Gutenberg-Bible online, click here.

Early printings 15th C.

The Gutenberg Museum has a number of major works from the early years of printing on permanent display. Books printed up to 1500 differ in many ways from the books we are familiar with from later years. These early examples have no title page, chapter headings or page numbers. What they do have are pages of beautiful illumination and illustration.

The protagonists of first few decades of the printed book often still clung to the traditional forms of the manuscript. The characteristics of the modern book emerged only gradually through fierce competition among printers, dependent on selling their books to be able to continue business, and through technical innovation in the printing of pictures.

Source: http://www.gutenberg-museum.de/42.0.html?&L=1

For more information about printing in the 16th-18th C. and 19th-20th C., just follow the linked texts.

And for further reading ,do head to Gutenberg Museum Mainz.

So, basically, photography was not allowed in the museum except for the demonstration and lobby area. My friends and I were just in time for the afternoon daily demonstrations at the basement demonstration workshop and shot some pictures in there.

The daily demonstrations are done all year round at 10 and 11 am and at 12, 2, 3 and 4 pm. The museum is closed on public holidays and Mondays. No prior booking for demonstrations is required. Just turn up in the museum basement at the times mentioned and enjoy the show.

Gutenberg’s workshop; one of the museum’s main attractions. Seen here is the replica of Gutenberg’s printing press, rebuilt according 15th- and 16th-century woodcuts.

Ms. Margot Uhrig explaining how the printing was done. Even though we didn’t understand most of the words spoken, we did understand how the printing was done from what we read in the museum.

Sources:
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/educator/modules/gutenberg/johann/
http://www.gutenberg-museum.de/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible