A new industry in an old city

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Around 1500, Basel was home to one of the most productive printing industries in Europe. In a city of ten thousand inhabitants, dozens of printing shops employed compositors, pressmen, correctors, illustrators and binders. These shops sent their books to the fairs of Frankfurt and Lyon and to the bookshops of Paris, Venice, Antwerp and London. Basel editions of the Church Fathers, of the classical authors, of the Bible in its original languages and of the works of Erasmus set standards of scholarship and craftsmanship that made the city's name known throughout learned Europe.¹

The printing industry of Basel is usually studied as part of the history of humanism, of the Reformation or of art. This chapter looks at it from a different angle: as an enterprise. Printing was the first industry in the history of Basel, and one of the first anywhere, in which the scale of investment, the length of the production cycle, the distance of the markets and the risks of the business required financial techniques that went beyond the resources of an individual craftsman. The printers of Basel were entrepreneurs who raised capital, formed partnerships, extended and received credit, managed stocks, sold in distant markets and sought protection for their investments. In doing so, they trained a generation of merchants in the management of an industrial business and created fortunes and networks that would later be used in trade and banking.

Notes

On the Basel printing industry around 1500 and its European significance, see HLS, article "Buchdruck"; Hieronymus, Basler Buchillustration 1500–1545, 1984; Berchtold, Bâle et l'Europe, 1990, vol. 1. To be verified. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.

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Dr Alexander Ressos, TEP

Rechtsanwalt/Attorney-at-Law

I am a Swiss attorney-at-law and also admitted as a solicitor in Hong Kong and in England & Wales, with almost 25 years of experience.

Together with my multilingual team, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian and French native speakers, I advise companies and their owners from around the world on the full range of banking, corporate, commercial and tax law matters in Switzerland, including international tax planning, fiduciary services, and legal family office services including immigration & relocation or real estate investments. My practice has a particular focus on clients from growth and frontier markets in Greater China, Central Asia and the Caucasus, the rest of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and I equally advise clients from Europe and North America. Through an affiliated Swiss trust company, we also take care of the incorporation and ongoing administration of their companies and other structures, including accounting, tax returns and corporate secretarial services, and I serve as a professional director where required. With the support of a network of first-class cooperation partners, I also implement solutions worldwide.

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A new industry in an old city

Notes

Setting up or expanding in Switzerland?