Johann Froben, in Latin: Johannes Frobenius (and combinations), (c. 1460 – 27 October 1527) was a famous printer, publisher and learned Renaissance humanist in Basel. He was a close friend of Erasmus and cooperated closely with Hans Holbein the Younger. He made Basel one of the world's leading centres of the book trade. He passed his printing business on to his son, Hieronymus, and grandson, Ambrosius Frobenius. Early life and printing partnership Johann Froben was born in Hammelburg, Franconia and appears the first time at the workshop of the printer of Anton Koberger of Nuremberg in 1486. He moved to Basel in the 1480s. He graduated from the University in Basel, where he made the acquaintance of the famous printer Johann Amerbach (c. 1440 — 1513). Froben established himself as a printer in that city about 1491, when he published the first manageable bible in the octavo format. He soon attained a European reputation for accuracy and taste. In 1500, he married the daughter of the bookseller Wolfgang Lachner, who entered into a partnership with him. It was part of Froben's plan to print editions of the Greek Fathers. In 1492 he printed Johann Heynlin's Resolutorum Dubiuosum. For the books Decretum (1493) by Gratian and Decretales (1494) by Pope Gregory IX he employed Sebastian Brant as an editor. Between 1496 and 1512 he was in a printing alliance together with Amerbach, and Johannes Petri for larger projects like collected works of Augustine. The printing partnership would be known as the Three Hannsen (Hannsen meant as an abbreviation of Johannes). In 1507 he bought Amerbachs printing house in the House to the Chair. But the partnership ended as by 1513, Petri and Amerbach had died. Printing career In 1513, he carefully published a copy of Erasmus Adagia with a cover designed by Urs Graf depicting the gods Nemesis and Caerus with an allegory of a triumphant Humanitas in a chariot pulled by Homer and Demosthenes and pushed by Cicero and Vergil. In 1514 Erasmus settled to Basel. Froben became friends with Erasmus, who lived in his house when in Basel, and not only had his own works printed by him from 1514, but superintended Froben's editions of Jerome, Cyprian, Tertullian, Hilary of Poitiers and Ambrose. His printing of Erasmus' Novum Testamentum (1516) was used by Martin Luther for his translation. He and later his son have published more than 200 works