Michael Furter

Page of the 1491 print of Ladislaus Sunthaym's genealogy of the House of Babenberg, with three initials: L for Leopold I, Margrave of Austria, H and P for his sons Henry and Poppo.

Michael Furter (died 1516 or 1517) was a printer of incunabula in Basel.

Furter is recorded as buying a house in Ryngasse, Lesser Basel on 15 January 1483. In 1491 he rented a shop for three and a half pound per year. He bought Basel citizenship for one gulden on 1 March 1488. The first dated prints by Furter are from 1489. In December 1500, he and his wife Ursula bought another house, called Zer Monen. He died between 10 November 1516 and 2 May 1517; declared insolvent after his death, he left no inheritance to his children. Furter's workshop is notable for its illustrated prints and its large number of initial alphabets (Haebler, Typenrepertorium, 1905 lists twelve), including Etterlin's chronicle, Der Ritter vom Turm (Marquard vom Stein) and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. Furter also produced numerous popular works on grammar, jurisprudence, theology and morals.

References

• Michael Furter in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
• Ernst Kelchner (1878), "Furter, Michael", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) (in German), vol. 8, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, p. 251
• Arnold Pfister: Furter, Michael. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie vol. 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9, p. 737.