Johann Froben

Johann Froben (born c. 1460, Hammelburg, Franconia [Germany]—died October 1527, Basel, Switz.) was the most famous of the Basel scholar-printers, whose professional innovations revolutionized printing in Basel and whose publications included many outstanding works of scholarship.

Froben’s first publication, a Latin Bible, appeared in 1491. Entering into partnership with Johann Petri (1496), Johann Amerbach (1500), and the bookseller Wolfgang Lachner, whose daughter Gertrud he married, Froben came to control four presses by 1515 and, later, seven. Froben’s contributions to printing in Basel included popularizing roman type, introducing italic and Greek fonts, experimenting with smaller and cheaper books, and employing talented artists, including Hans Holbein, as illustrators. His correctors included many famous scholars who benefited from the proximity of the hitherto little-used manuscript collections of Alsace and the Palatinate.

About 250 of Froben’s publications have been listed. They include, notably, the first New Testament printed in Greek, with a Latin translation (1516) by Erasmus, who after 1513 entrusted the printing of all his works to Froben, and also the works of the Roman historian Velleius Paterculus (1520) and the Latin church father Tertullian (1521), both edited by Beatus Rhenanus.