European inventor of printing with movable type, born Mainz, Germany, c.1400;died there, 1467. About 1434 he joined the goldsmith's guild at Strasbourg, and experimented in typography. Shortly after 1444 he printed two short works, still extant, with a type used later in the "26-line Bible." With the financial aid of Johann Fust he made a new type for the famous Mazarin "42-line" Bible, 1455, but became insolvent when Fust required repayment. In 1460 he printed a grammar and lexicon, with a new set of small type fashioned after the contemporary cursive handwriting. Gutenberg spent his declining years in the service of Archbishop Adolf of Nassau.