ABSTRACT
Festschriften form a genre of celebratory publications that has a long tradition in the German language area. Apparently the first Festschrift was Jubilaeum typographorum Lipsiensium: Oder Zweyhundert-Jähriges Buchdrucker JubelFest, published in 1640 by Gregor Ritzsch, a Leipzig book printer who wished to honour the bicentennial of Johannes Gutenberg’s introduction of the printing press. This was an appropriate starting point for the tradition, since Gutenberg’s movable type page setting and printing had led to a technological revolution that helped to expand networks of knowledge formation far beyond the earlier confines of oral tradition and handwritten copies. Even if the employment effects of the technical change (a favourite subject in Harald Hagemann’s research) are especially difficult to quantify in this case, Gutenberg’s innovation certainly had a huge positive net effect in the long run – not to speak of the cultural externalities that the subsequent ages of Renaissance and Enlightenment brought along.
