In 1464, Heynlin went to the
University of Basel where he lectured philosophy. The old controversy regarding the nature of
Universals had not yet subsided, and in the university of Basel Nominalism held sway. Hence in view of this and the maintenance of peace within the institution, the admission of Heynlin to the faculty was not accomplished without a most vigorous opposition. Once a member of the faculty, he hoped to rid it of all Nominalistic tendencies, nor was he disappointed in his expectation. In 1465, he became dean of the faculty of arts and in this capacity he revised the university statutes and thus brought about a firmly established curriculum of studies. In 1466, he returned to Paris, obtained the doctorate in
theology, was in 1469 elected rector of the university and became professor of theology at the
Sorbonne.
Heynlin's printing press Heynlin's most noteworthy achievement was the establishment of the first printing-press in Paris. Heynlin worked closely with
Guillaume Fichet (1433-ca. 1480), another professor at the Sorbonne, who had also come from abroad: from
Le Petit-Bornand-les-Glières, in
Savoy. Heynlin brought Swiss workmen to install this press in the buildings of the Sorbonne at the end of 1469 or the beginning of 1470: Ulrich Gering (or Guerinch or Guernich) (1445-1510), Michael Friburger and Martin Crantz (or Krantz). Ulrich Gering may have come from
Münster in the canton of
Aargau, Friburger from
Colmar and Crantz may have also come from Münster or
Strasbourg. Heynlin gave valuable pecuniary aid to their undertakings, especially for the printing of the works of the
Church Fathers.
King Louis XI granted letters of naturalization to all three workmen in 1475. Their first publication with this press, and the first book printed in France, was a collection of letters by the fifteenth century grammarian
Gasparinus de Bergamo (Gasparino Barzizza). The
Epistolae Gasparini Pergamensis (1470) were intended to provide an exemplar for students for the writing of artful and elegant
Latin. Their second work was a translation of
Sallust (1470-1471), the third the
Orationes of
Bessarion (1471), and the fourth was Fichet's own
Rhetorica in 1471. The number of the works which they published from 1470 to 1472 amounts to some thirty works. At the end of 1472 or at the beginning of 1473, Heynlin and Fichet left the Sorbonne to settle on
Rue Saint-Jacques. Two of their apprentices,
Pierre de Kaysere (Petrus Caesaris) and
Jean Stoll, established around the same time and on the same street their own competing printing press, with the emblem of the
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