Gutenberg monument, Frankfurt

The Johannes Gutenberg Monument stands in the centre of Frankfurt am Main on the Roßmarkt, a square once used for horse trading. It is a bronze monument and fountain built to honour Johannes Gensfleisch, known as Gutenberg, who invented movable metal type for printing. The monument also recognises two of his Frankfurt colleagues, the printer Johannes Fust and the publisher Peter Schöffer. The monument was created by the sculptor Eduard Schmidt von der Launitz in the mid-19th century. His original terracotta statues from 1840 were later reproduced in bronze using a new galvanoplastic technique developed by the physicist Rudolf Christian Böttger. The monument replaced an earlier Hercules fountain on the same site and now forms part of the city’s protected heritage. Visitors see three life-size bronze figures standing on a square pedestal. The pedestal itself is decorated with fourteen portrait heads of printers and publishers from different centuries, including Will Caxton and Aldus Manutius. Four walls display the coats of arms of Mainz, Frankfurt, Strasbourg and Venice. Below the pedestal, four allegorical figures represent science, industry, poetry and theology, and four animal-headed spouts feed small fountains in warmer months.