Bernhard von Mallinckrodt (29 November 1591 in Ahlen — 7 March 1664, Burg Ottenstein), dean (Domdechant) of Münster Cathedral, was a bibliophile from Mallinckrodt family, an old Westphalian noble family of Protestants, who converted to Catholicism.
Biography
editIn 1639 he issued a pamphlet at Cologne to mark the bicentenary of the invention of printing by moveable type in Europe, defending the priority of Gutenberg; it was titled De ortu et progressu artis typographicae ("Of the rise and progress of the typographic art"), that includes the phrase prima typographicae incunabula, "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.[1]
Notes
edit- ^ Jacqueline Glomski, "Incunabula Typographiae: Seventeenth-Century Views on Early Printing" The Library 2.4 (2001 :336-348) sets Mallinckrodt's dissertation in cultural setting.
External links
edit- Full text of De ortu et progressu artis typographicae (Latin).
 | This article about a German academic is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |