Mainz, Cathedral

The cathedral in Mainz is a huge Romanesque edifice, in many ways similar to the ones in nearby Speyer and Worms. The multiple massive towers, thick walls and small windows are an amazing contrast to the lacy towers, huge stained-glass windows, and walls supported by flying buttresses, found in the Gothic cathedrals designed and built in later years.

Mainz’s most famous “favorite son,” Johann Gensfleisch Gutenberg, the inventor of printing with movable type, was born here in 1400 and died in 1468. The Gutenberg Museum is open to the public with a reconstructed printing press and a 1284 page Gutenberg Bible (with forty-two lines to the page), available for viewing. The Bible is the first substantial book known to have been printed with movable type, and 185 copies were printed between 1450 and 1455.