He was the first printer in Basel to use the Roman type instead of Gothic and Italian and spared no expense in his art.

[6] It was during his studies in Paris, where he was surrounded by humanist luminaries such as Heynlein, Johann Reuchlin and Rudolf Agricola, where his interest into humanism is assumed to have developed.

In 1477 where he was a witness between two German printers in a trial in Perugia and purchased punches from a closing printshop in Treviso.

[11] In 1484 he earned the citizenship of Basel[12][13] and became the city's most important printer, developing own distribution channels towards Strasbourg and Paris.

[14] Additionally he usually visited the fair in Frankfurt am Main twice a year, often accompanied by other printers of Basel.

[14] A further cooperation with the printer Anton Koberger from Nuremberg, opened the market towards Eastern and Southern Europe for his books.

[15] With the publication of the edition of the Epistolarum Novum of the humanist Francesco Filelfo in 1486, he became the first printer of a book in the Antique typeface.

[16] In 1490 Amerbach bought the house "to the chair" in the centre of Basel where he opened an additional printing house[2] and by 1496 he founded together with Johannes Petri and Johann Froben an alliance of three printers in which most of the costs for printing books was divided between either two or three printers.