Place Gutenberg

This guide to the statue at Place Gutenberg in Strasbourg follows a monument that started a religious fight before it was even cast: sculptor David d'Angers's 1830s design paired Gutenberg with Martin Luther and a Catholic bishop, and word of it split the city before the panel could go to bronze. The sculptor, a committed republican with no patience for either side, redrew the panel around Erasmus and Montesquieu instead. The statue was unveiled on schedule on the twenty-fourth of June 1840, four hundred years after the invention of printing, though the finished bronze reliefs were not ready and painted plaster stood in their place. Look closely at the panel behind the statue to spot which figures made the final cut.