Johann Haller

Printer and publisher
Johann Haller or Jan Haller was not the first printer in Poland, but he established the first regular printing house in the country in 1503. Prior to engaging himself in publishing business he was a wine dealer and bookseller. His printing and publishing house was established in Cracow, and a German artisan Gaspar Hochfeder was brought to print the books Haller published. After two years Haller took complete charge of the printing establishment, and in the course of some twenty years he published about 260 items. Haller’s office had the distinction of publishing Poland’s first illustrated work, Jan Laski’s legal “Statutes” in 1506. One of his most important sources of income came from Jan Konarski, bishop of Cracow from 1503 to 1524, for whom Haller produced a sequence of missals, books of hours and assorted rubrics.

Besides his printing office, Haller also owned one of Poland’s oldest paper mills, at Pradnik Czerwony near Cracow, founded c. 1493.