Tsemaḥ David (The Sprout of David): On the Invention of the Printing Press

David Ganz

1592

The printing of books: began [lit. “was located”] in the city of Mainz, by a Christian man named Johannes Gutenberg of Strasbourg, and this was in the first year of the pious emperor, Friedrich, in the year 5200, 1440 according to the Christians. Blessed is the one who grants knowledge and teaches wisdom to humanity. Blessed is the one who has strengthened us in his mercy in a great technology such as this, for the benefit of all inhabitants of the world; there is none like it. And nothing matches it in value among all the sciences and technologies since the day that God created man and set him in the world, including the divine sciences and the seven liberal arts, and the other ad hoc disciplines of arts, crafts, metalwork, construction, woodworking, stonework, and the like. Every day, the press reveals and publicizes useful things and many devices, through the vast numbers of books printed for workers in all fields.

Translated by
Adam
Shear
and
Joseph
Hacker
.

Notes

Words in brackets appear in the original translation.

Credits

David Ganz, from Tsemaḥ David [The Sprout of David: On the Invention of the Printing Press], trans. Adam Shear and Joseph Hacker, in Adam Shear and Joseph R. Hacker, “Book History and the Hebrew Book in Italy,” from The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy, eds. Joseph R. Hacker and Adam Shear (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), p. 1. Copyright © 2011. Reprinted with permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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Creator Bio

David Ganz

1541–1613

Born in Lippstadt (now North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany), David Ganz was a chronicler, mathematician, historian, astronomer, and astrologer. He studied at two of the great yeshivas of his time, those of Moses Isserles and of Sinai ben Bezalel, brother of the Maharal of Prague. Ganz first became interested in astronomy in his youth and encountered both Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe. Most of his writings have been lost. He is best known for his historical work—the only full-length work published in his lifetime—Tsemaḥ David (The Sprout of David). The book is divided into two parts, the first dedicated to the history of the Jews, the second to non-Jewish history. His book on astronomy, Neḥmad ve-na’im (Nice and Pleasant), was published in 1743, more than a century after his death.

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