Schwabe AG

In November 1488, Johannes Petri von Langendorf near Hammelburg in Franconia, who had learned the art of printing and typesetting in Mainz while Johannes Gutenberg was still alive, bought Basel citizenship and the guild rights of the saffron guild. As a result, he published partly independently, but mostly in a printing and publishing community with Johannes Amerbach and Johannes Froben. After his death, his nephew Adam Petri took over the business and reprinted almost all of Martin Luther's important writings. Adam's son Heinrich Petri printed literature from theology to classical authors and contemporary history to mathematics and natural sciences, medicine and alchemy, including numerous collective works and encyclopaedias. In 1556, he was knighted by Emperor Charles V. From then on his descendants called themselves Henricpetri.