Main (Thompson) Library location: North wing -- Second window. Melchior Lotter (c.1470 – c.1549) was born in Aue, in the Ore Mountains, around 1470. He began to work with Leipzig printer Konrad Kachelofen, and in 1495, he printed his first book, Orationes legatorum Francorum ad Venetos. He married into Kachelofen's family and continued to print with him occasionally. Between 1515 and 1517, Lotter started to produce smaller prints, including a set of Indulgences commissioned to finance the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica. In 1517, Lotter printed the first edition of Luther's Ninety-five Theses and later issued publications of Luther's involvement in the Leipzig Debates of 1519. In 1520, Luther encouraged Lotter to transfer to Wittenberg, where Lotter entrusted a branch of his practice to his son, Melchior Lotter the Younger. This son also pursued a career in printing and worked closely with Luther, for whom he published Das Newe Testament Deutzsch and another edition of his Ninety-five Theses in 1522. For the remainder of his career, Lotter the Elder focused on the publication of grammar textbooks, classical texts, liturgical commissions, and until 1526, the official documents of Saxony. Notably, Lotter cast and printed with typesets in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew throughout his career. The printer's mark of Melchior Lotter displayed in the Vassar Library consists of the initials M.L. Lotter used a more elaborate device in many of his publications; it depicts a mendicant holding a shield bearing his monogram. This could be an illustration of the colloquial translation of Lotter, meaning "vagabond." It is probably that Melchior Lotter the Younger adopted his father's device in his own work.