Career
In 1513 he had printed in Rome the Psalterium David et Cantica aliqua, in Ge"ez. lieutenant was a collection of psalms and other canticles. Potken had learned the language from the Ethiopian Abba Thomas Walda Samuel, a pilgrim to Jerusalem and guest of Pope Leo X. This was the beginning of European publishing of Ethiopian literature (although misidentified by Potken as "Chaldean") The work included a syllabary, Alphabetus, seu potius Syllabarius literarum Chaldaearium.
The font was cut by Marcellus Silber, a printer in Regensburg.
He was in Rome as a long term papal protonotary. He became provost of the church of Saint Georg, Cologne.
Potken edited also the quadrilingual Psalterium in quatuor linguis Hebraea Graeca Chaldaea Latina, which appeared in 1518, with Johann Soter (ie Johann Heyl). He was a correspondent of Sebastian Brant and Johannes Reuchlin.
