Adolf Rusch von Ingweiler (ca. 1435 - 26 May 1489 in Straßburg) was a notable German printer and publisher. He was the first printer north of the Alps to print in Antiqua.

Life and work

Rusch was probably born at Ingweiler in Alsace. Before 1488 he married Salome Mentelin, the Daughter of the well-known Straßburg printer Johannes Mentelin

Johannes Mentelin

Johannes Mentelin, sometimes also spelled Mentlin, was a pioneering German book printer and bookseller of the incunabulum time...

, in whose printing shop he assisted. In the Rationale divinorum officium, printed by Rusch in 1474, he was the first to use the Antiqua type which had originated in Italy; in this type Rusch issued Latin classics, including works by Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

 and Seneca

Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...

. Jointly with Mentelin he produced theological and medical works, in the Mentelin typeface. Rusch left behind an extensive correspondence.

In the 19th century his work had not yet been attributed to him and was ascribed to the R-printer because of the peculiar shape of the capital 'R' used by him.

External links

• Example of Adolf Rusch's printing style