The city where the printed word was born — where Johannes Gutenberg invented movable-type printing in the 1440s and changed the spread of knowledge forever, the Rhine makes its great bend below the vine-terraced Rhenish hills, and Germany's oldest continuously producing wine region begins at the cathedral steps
Mainz (220,000) is the capital of Rhineland-Palatinate and the site of Johannes Gutenberg's printing workshop — the 1440s invention that produced the Gutenberg Bible and transformed the spread of knowledge across the globe. The city sits at the confluence of the Rhine and Main rivers, directly opposite Frankfurt. The Mainz Cathedral (Dom St. Martin, begun 975 CE, completed 1239 CE) is one of the three great Rhenish Romanesque cathedrals alongside Speyer and Worms. Mainz was also one of Germany's oldest Roman cities (founded c. 13 BCE as Mogontiacum) and served as capital of Roman Germania Sup…
Mogontiacum was founded as a Roman military camp around 13 BCE on the Rhine opposite the mouth of the Main, and served as capital of the province of Germania Superior with a garrison of up to 10,000 soldiers. The city's greatest contribution to world history came from a goldsmith's apprentice named Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400–1468), who developed movable type printing in Mainz in the 1440s and printed the Gutenberg Bible (c. 1455) — the first major book produced in Europe using movable type. Within 50 years of the Gutenberg Bible, over 20 million books had been printed across Europe; within 1…