SYNOPSIS:

Strasbourg, 1436: Humble inventor, Johann Gutenberg, works on his groundbreaking invention, a printing press he believes will be a boon to humanity. But, far away in Rome, Pope Eugene sees the threat of engravers’ machines printing anti-Papal Hussite literature, believing their divisive power will destroy Christendom. With this threat, the Pope commands his brethren that all tools, supplies and implements used to make the Devil’s Machines and its literature must be embargoed to artisans. But his embargo catches the ire of the Grand Master of the Guilds and stalwart of the Hanseatic League and its financier backer, Cosimo De Medici. Without supplies and funding to complete his work, Johann is lured to the Hussite cause – a cause spearheaded in Germany by Nikolaus Cusa, a legate of the Pope. Johann’s machine offers Nikolaus the vehicle to achieve the Hussite goals so offers to fund his project to perfecting it. Johann’s love interest and budding intellectual, Ennelin, helps broker the deal. The Pope posts a spy, a priest, Karl Sententia, to Strasbourg. Soon, he informs the Pope he has found the source of the Devil’s Machine. The Pope instructs Karl to have Johann arrested, thinking he is the source of all disruption. He also instructs the Inquisitor to make his way to Strasbourg to exact a confession out of Johann. Karl finds out the Ennelin – for whom he has a shining – is his accomplice. On the eve of his arrest and after a meeting with his backers, Johann gets wind of his imminent arrest and, like thieves in the night, runs away with Ennelin. But Karl finds him days later, after Johann escapes a security net of Papal soldiers, and gives him an ultimatum: break off with Ennelin, give himself up or Ennelin and he will be tortured. Deciding the latter, he confesses to the Inquisitor that he is guilty. When the Pope meets Johann, he commits to burn him at the stake as a non-penitent but Johann’s allies –banker, Cosimo De Medici, the Grand Master of the Guilds, and Nikolaus – meet the Pope and broker to have him released or else they will bankrupt the Church. With the Anti-Pope Felix ready to declare war and the Muslim invasion escalating in the East, the Pope’s judgment is clear: release Johann. But it is not without cost: the Pope takes away his press and gives it to Johann Fust, a businessman with dubious business links but allied to the Church. In the end, he loses the two most precious things in his life: the press and his one great love. He wanders the towns and cities of Germany, a tragic figure, seeing others profit by claiming his invention as theirs and never knowing how much he changed the world.