Lotter was the last name of a family of

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

printers, intimately connected with the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

. The founder of the family was Melchior Lotter, the elder, born at Aue, and well-known at

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

as early as 1491. He published

missal A missal is a liturgical book containing instructions and texts necessary for the celebration of Mass throughout the liturgical year. Versions differ across liturgical tradition, period, and purpose, with some missals intended to enable a priest ...

breviaries A breviary () is a liturgical book used in Christianity for praying the canonical hours, usually recited at seven fixed prayer times. Historically, different breviaries were used in the various parts of Christendom, such as Aberdeen Breviary, ...

, a ''

Persius Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satire, he shows a Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he considered to be the stylistic abuses of his ...

'' (1512), ''Horatii Epistolæ'' (1522), and ''Luther Tessaradecos Consolatoria pro Laborantibus'' (1520). His relations with the Reformation are not perfectly clear, but he seems to have been a sympathizer. An innovation by the elder Lotter was his use of Roman types for

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

, reserving the Gothic types for

. His son was also named Melchior (died c. 1542), which has resulted in some bibliographical confusion. Melchior, the younger, is best known for printing

Martin Luther Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...

's Bible, '' Das Neue Testament'' (1522), and the impressions of 1523 and 1524 of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

, which was transferred afterward to

Hans Lufft Hans Lufft (1495–1584) was a German printer and publisher, commonly called "the Bible Printer," because in 1534 he printed at Wittenberg the first complete edition of Luther's Bible, in two Folio The term "folio" () has three interconnect ...

. He published many other German writings of Luther. Only a little less important was his bringing a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

Wittenberg Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is the fourth-largest town in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, in the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany. It is situated on the River Elbe, north of Leipzig and south-west of the reunified German ...

, thus giving

Melanchthon Philip Melanchthon (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the L ...

the means to carry on classes in Greek. When he returned to Leipzig, about 1525, Lotter carried on his father's business.

Works

Antiqua et insignis Epistola Nicolai Papa I., ad Michaelem Imperatorem. . . https://books.google.com/books?id=GeBKAAAAcAAJ&pg=false

References

*J. Franck, in ''Allegemeine deutsche Biographie'', v. xix (Leipzig, 1884) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lotter, Melchior German printers German publishers (people) 15th-century births 16th-century births 16th-century deaths 1542 deaths German publishing families