For the first time in history a member of the Catholic Hierarchy is pictured on a United States postage stamp. The honor goes to Archbishop Adolf of Mainz, Germany, whose picture appears on the three-cent commemorative stamp honoring the invention of printing issue by the Post Office Department on September 30.
The stamp, which commemorates the 500th anniversary of the Gutenberg Bible, carries a vignette showing Johann Gutenberg and an assistant giving a page proof of the new Bible to Adolf II of Nassau, elector of Mainz, who was one of Gutenberg’s patrons. When the stamp was announced, it was at first realized that Adolf of Nassau was a Catholic prelate. But research at the Library of Congress establishes beyond doubt that he was Archbishop of Mainz from 1462 to 1475 and at the time Gutenberg was printing the Bible in Mainz was Canon of that city’s great Cathedral.
Confusion arose because the artist, Edward Laning, from whose mural in the New York City Public Library the Stamp illustration is taken, pictured the prelate in lay garb.
The rules of the Church were not strict then as now and it is recorded that during his primacy in the archdiocese, Adolf tightened discipline and morals among the clergy. However, it is more likely that the artist was in error, and that Adolf should have been pictured in priestly garb.
Little is known of the prelate’s early life, just as there are gaps in the historical record concerning Johann Gutenberg before he came to great fame as a result of his Holy Book of 1452. It is known that for some time Gutenberg was a Franciscan tertiary of the Third Order. Records here make clear, however, that the Catholic Church took a spirited interest in Gutenberg’s project from the very beginning. In 1441, through the encouragement of the Bishop of Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine, the parish of St. Thomas of that city agreed to loan Gutenberg a considerable sum of money to undertake his work of the printing of the Bible.
Gutenberg at this point dropped from sight of the historians but in 1448 appeared in his native city of Mainz, where he had been invited to return. Adolf II of Nassau was at this time Canon in charge of the Cathedral of Mainz. It was then that he took an interest in Gutenberg’s rapidly progressing work.
In 1452 the first of a number of Bibles which Gutenberg was to print was delivered to the Cathedral of Mainz.
Unfortunately for Father Adolf and other financial backers of the project, the printed Bible was a success but the market was poor. Few persons could read and even fewer could afford the relatively high price of the Bible..
By 1455 Adolf had come to the archiepiscopal chair and once again showed his interest in Gutenberg. By letters patent he invited Gutenberg to join his band of gentleman pensioners at a handsome annual stipend. Thus, Gutenberg died in 1468 honored by his benefactor and fellow townsmen.
It is one of the remarkable turns of history that Archbishop Adolf is now to find his lasting fame not for his great deeds for Church and country, but for his patronage of the world’s first struggling printer, who gave mankind a great blessing and whose first use of that blessing was to give the world a Bible that could be distributed to the masses of the people.
Post Office officials here confirmed that this is the first time a member of the Catholic hierarchy has appeared on a U. S. postage stamp, although two priests have been shown on stamps. They are the priest who was among the Four Chaplains honored in 1948, and the missionary priest who appears on the Cadillac Expedition commemorative issued last year on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the founding of Detroit.
Credit for the discovery of the identity of Gutenberg’s benefactor belongs to Father Aloysius S. Horn of Fremont, Ohio. Father Horn is one of the nation’s outstanding authorities on religion in stamps.[1]
References:
1. “Gutenberg Anniversary Stamp Is First in U.S. History to Picture Member of Hierarchy,” The Guardian, Newspaper Archives of the Southern Cross, October 25, 1952. p. 18
