Bernhard von Mallinckrodt
Encyclopedia
Ahlen
Ahlen is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is part of the District of Warendorf and is economically the most important town in that district. Ahlen is part of the larger Münster region, and of the historic Münsterland area....
— 7 March 1664, Burg Ottenstein), dean (Domdechant) of Münster
Münster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
cathedral, was a bibliophile from a noble family of Protestants, who converted to Catholicism.
In 1639 he issued a pamphlet
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
at Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
to mark the bicentennary of the invention of printing
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction 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
Incunabulum
Incunable, or sometimes incunabulum is a book, pamphlet, or broadside, that was printed — not handwritten — before the year 1501 in Europe...
, which is still used to describe books and broadsheets printed before 1500, the arbitrary cut-off date selected by Mallinckrodt..