Typographorum Emblemata

Anna Jakimyszyn-Gadocha

Jewish Printers’ Marks from Poland (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries)

Introduction

With Johannes Gutenberg inventing movable type printing in the 1440s, the manner in which texts were reproduced in the traditions of different cultures was changed forever.325 This was also the case for Judaism.326 The Jews soon learned the art of printing. They referred to Gutenberg’s invention as “holy” or even “divine” and to the profession of printing as “the highest of all trades”.327 As a result, the first Jewish book (incunable) was printed between 1469 and 1472, and only 30 years after movable type had been invented.328 The printing technique arrived in Poland in the sixteenth century, and the first Jewish printing house was opened ...