Michael Furter

Michael Furter (* in the 15th century in Augsburg, † 1516 or 1517 in Basel ) was a printer of incunabula in Basel.

Life

Michael Furter acquired on 15 January 1483 house with paddock in the Ryngasse (Rhein Street) in Little Basel. On September 25, 1486 he joined the Safran guild and later also the key guild, of which he rented annually on September 21, 1491 a shop for 3 ½ pounds, the front of him Hans Vurster had held from Kempten. On March 1, 1488 Furter acquired the civil rights and paid for a florin bar for the rest of three guilders made ​​Master Jacob Wolff guarantee.

In December 1500 he bought with his wife Ursula for 70 guilders the house called " Zer Monen ", located at the grain market. Although he ran as a printer and the bookbinder next to his business and was, moreover worked as a bookkeeper, he was not able to thrive in his financial circumstances so that when he died after 10 November 1516 before May 2, 1517 his children renounced the inheritance and the bankruptcy had to be imposed on his estate.

Furters Prints are usually not very extensive, with the exception of for the account printed, for example, works for Wolfgang Lachner and Johann Bergmann of Olpe; among them are particularly large number of grammatical and popular - legal content, but also theology and morality is not missing.

Noteworthy is the relatively large number of decorated with woodcuts books. Apart from the simple title images, here are particularly noteworthy several editions of a Guillelmus Parisiensis ascribed Postilla super epistolas et evangelia, two editions of John Mede Quadragesimale de filio prodigo, many editions of Meinrad legend who the Church Fathers attributed to Methodius of Olympus, actually only from the 7th -century Revelationes and the Knights of the Turn of the Marquard vom Stein with pictures of the Master of Bergmann's Offizin.

This preference for book decoration emerges also in the large number of initial alphabets of which Konrad Haebler in his " Typenrepertorium " (from 1905) enumerates twelve alone. Later, a number were still further established.