It was Jakob Klöss sen. Who first introduced printing in the largest Scepusian town Lőcse (Levoča, SK) in 1614. This North-Hungarian free royal town inhabited mostly by German-speaking Lutheran citizens was only a temporary seat of Klöss, who later moved to the nearby town Bártfa (Bardejov, SK). Some years later, in 1617 another printer Daniel Schultz was working here, but he soon left the town for Kassa (Košice, SK)
The next printer who set up a printing shop in Lőcse was Laurenz Brewer who, together with his brother Bruno Brewer had a bookshop in the town, which they decided to enlarge

The town hall in Lőcse (Levoča, SK) today

with a press in 1625. From that time on three generations of the Brewer-family were leading a profitable printing-shop in the town. Although printing began in 1625, they purchased their equipment years earlier, between 1619–1622.

Initials from the Brewer-press

For some time Laurenz Brewer continued bookselling parallelly with printing, but after 1639 he gave up buying and selling books from foreign countries, although their commerce was very profitable.
It can be taken for certain that Laurenz Brewer was a learned printer and took an active part in producing books. He was also among the prominent citizens of the town, was almost lifelong a member of the town magistrate. It was very favourable from the point of view of his printing shop that his father in law Samuel Spielenberg, a well-known physician, was also owner of the papermill at the nearby Szepestapolca ( Spišská Teplica, SK).

An early piece of the Lőcse calendars so popular all over Hungary. The title-page of the calendar for 1627 is decorated with the coat of arms of Hungary (RMNy 1369)

As to the origins of his printing equipment, a part o fit came probably from Cracow, antother part from the remnants of the one-time Fest-equipment from Kassa: because some years after the death of the printer Fest (1622) they were apparently purchased by the Brewers, among them printing types and ornaments.

The Brewer-office in Lőcse soon became not only one of the most productive ones in whole Hungary but also the qauality of their books was outstanding. As to the rate of books in Hungarian language, Lőcse was the third, preceded only by Debrecen and Kolozsvár. The books printed in Lőcse found their readers in a much wider circle than the town or the neighbouring region.

Wood-cut tail-piece from the Brewer-press	The crest of Lőcse on a house, carved into stone

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LITERATURE:
Régi magyarországi nyomtatványok 2, 1601-1635. Szerk.: Borsa Gedeon és Hervay Ferenc. Budapest 1983.
(rövidítve: RMNy)
Pavercsik Ilona: A lőcsei Brewer-nyomda a 17-18. században. In: Országos Széchényi Könyvtár Évkönyve 1979, 353-408, 1980, 349-473
Repčák, Jozef: Prehlád dejin knihtlače na Slovensku. Bratislava 1948