This is the Gutenberg House, also known as Kamienica pod Gutenbergiem, and it was commissioned by Jan Petersilge, a printer and publisher who completed it in the late nineteenth century. Look at the façade of this building, which is unlike anything else on the street. You can see sheet metal dragons clutching halberds above the windows. A horned devil leers out from a mascaron below the roofline. A winged female mask wreathed in sea serpents guards another level. Between the upper windows, medallions honour the pioneers of printing. And in a niche at the top stands a statue of Johannes Gutenberg, a German inventor known for developing Europe's first practical printing system. Before this, every book in Europe was copied by hand. A single Bible took a scribe roughly three years to produce. Books were so rare and so expensive that most people would never hold one in their entire lives. When Gutenberg developed his movable metal type system, he made it possible to produce hundreds of identical copies in the time it once took to make one. His first major project was the Gutenberg Bible. Fewer than fifty copies survive in the world today, each worth tens of millions of dollars. If you've visited the British Library in London or the Library of Congress in Washington, you may have seen one behind glass. But here's the thing about a revolution in information: you cannot control what gets printed. Gutenberg's press gave the world the Bible, scientific texts, poetry, and philosophy. It also gave the world the Malleus Maleficarum, a handbook for identifying and prosecuting witches. That book went through dozens of editions and became one of the most widely distributed texts in Europe for nearly two centuries. It fuelled waves of persecution, torture, and execution across the continent. Can you imagine? An invention that spread knowledge also spread fear. The building itself was commissioned by Jan Petersilge, a printer and publisher who ran Łódź's first newspaper, the Lodzer Anzeiger, from a print shop in the rear courtyard. The elaborate Gothic and German Renaissance ornament on the façade reflects the strong German community that helped build industrial Łódź. Germans arrived from Saxony, Silesia, and Brandenburg with incentives of land and tax benefits, and at one point made up the majority of the population. This building, with its dragons and printer's symbols, was their announcement to the city: we are here, and we helped build this. One last thought before we move on. If you've ever downloaded a free ebook, there's a good chance it came from Project Gutenberg, the world's oldest digital library, founded to make literature freely accessible to everyone. It was named after the man standing above you. The idea is the same one that Petersilge celebrated on this façade over a century ago: that knowledge belongs to everyone, not just those who can afford it. Follow the map to the next stop, where I’ll introduce you to a very famous bear.
