Aloys Senefelder (1771-1834), German printer. Senefelder is famous for the invention of the printing method of lithography. When he found it difficult to publish the plays that he was writing, he began to study methods of printing. In 1796, he discovered an improvement on the chemical etching that was then used to form a template for printing. His method used the fact that grease (wax) and water don't mix, producing a chemical template where the ink only sticks to a grease- sensitive area. This inked template is used to print the document. Senefelder published an 1818 book on this lithographic method. Engraving from Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century (1898).