Johannes Oporinus was a humanist printer in Basel.
Life
Johannes Oporinus, the son of the painterHans Herbst, was born in Basel. He completed his academic training in Strasbourg and Basel. After working as a teacher in the Cistercian convent of St. Urban, he returned to Basel, where he worked as a proofer in the shop of Johann Froben, the most important Basel printer of the early 16th Century. In addition, he taught at the Basel Latin school from 1526. After 1537 Oporinus taught Greek at the University of Basel. In 1542 he resigned his academic post to devote himself full-time to his printing workshop. In addition, he completed a medical studies and was temporarily famulus to the iconoclasticphysicianParacelsus. He is said to have married the widow of the publisher Johan Hervagius the younger. He died deeply in debt. His manuscript collection and his extensive correspondence are preserved in the Basel University Library.
Publications
After a Latin version of Gesta Danorum in 1534, entitled Saxonis grammatici Danorum historiae libri XVI, in 1542/43 he made the first edition of the Latin Koran edited by Theodor Bibliander from a translation made by Robert of Ketton in Spain between 1142 and 1143 by command of Peter the Venerable, which caused Oporinus serious difficulties. The Basel city council wanted to prevent the publication but yielded due to the intervention of Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. The most important publication of his workshop was the anatomical atlas De humani corporis fabrica by the humanist physician Andreas Vesalius, in 1543. In October 1546 a book on the assassination of the Spanish Protestant Juan Díaz, entitled Historia vera de morti sancti viri Ioannis Diazii Hispanics by Claudium Senarclaeum, was published by his workshop, which is attributed to Francisco de Enzinas. In addition, his press published numerous polemical theological works, classics, and historiographical works. His fine knowledge of ancient languages served the quality of consistently correct textual editions. Oporinus later printed a work on church history by Matthias Flacius Illyricus: Catalogus testium veritatis and the first eleven of Wigand's thirteen Magdeburg Centuries. In 1559 he published the complete editio princeps of Diodorus Siculus' Bibliotheca historica.
Oporinus' mark
Looking at title page or at colophon of an Oporinus edition, the printer's device is striking. It shows the mythological lyre player Arion of Lesbos, which is supported by a Dolphin on the sea. There are more variant forms of it.
