Hans Glaser
German printer and print maker
Who was Hans Glaser?
Hans Wolff Glaser (also Hanns Glaser, Hans Glasser, Hans Wolff Glaßer; c. 1500 – June 1573) was a printer, block-cutter, woodcut tinter and publisher from Nuremberg in the Holy Roman Empire, known for printing broadsheets, some featuring woodcut illustrations. Glaser produced prints between 1540 and 1572. He died in June 1573. Hans Glaser also referred to himself as a wood cutter, letter painter and letter printer and is listed as such from 1538 in the office books of the city of Nuremberg. Until 1553 he lived in Nuremberg in what he referred to himself as the "Schmelzhütten", after which Glaser had his workshop in the immediate vicinity of the parish church of St. Lorenz.
Career and public life
Glaser is most-known for printing a broadsheet news article on 14 April 1561 describing a mass sighting of a celestial event or unidentified flying objects that occurred over Nuremberg on 4 April the same year. The broadsheet, illustrated with a woodcut and text, is preserved at the Zentralbibliothek Zürich in Zurich, Switzerland. It describes objects of various shapes including crosses, spears, discs, a crescent, and a tubular object from which several smaller, round objects emerged and darted around...