# The Invention of Printing/Chapter 23

XXIII
The Work of Peter Schœffer and John Fust.
Schœffer a Copyist at Paris in 1449 … Fac-simile of his Writing … Enters the Service of Gutenberg. Psalter of 1457, with Fac-simile of Types and Initials in Colors … Accurate Register of Initial made by Painting the Cut … Evidences of Painting … Fac-simile of Colophon in Colors … Different Theories concerning the Method of Printing … Schœffer's First Claim as an Inventor. Psalter probably Planned by Gutenberg … Fac-similes of the Types of the Rationale Durandi and of the Bible of 1462 … Trade-Mark of Fust and Schœffer … Fac-simile of the Types of the Constitutions … Jenson's Mission to Mentz … Printing not a Secret … Death of Fust … Partnership of Schœffer and Conrad Fust … Fac-simile of Types of 1468 … Schœffer becomes a Judge … Schœffer's Claim to the Invention of Matrices … Statements of John Schœffer and of Trithemius … Their Improbability … Statement of Jo. Frid. Faustus … Its Untrustworthiness.
Van der Linde.
Peter Schœffer was born at Gernszheim, a little village situated on the Rhine, near Mentz, about the year 1430. Before he was twenty years of age, he was copying books at Paris, as is clearly enough shown in the colophon of an old manuscript book, which says that "this book was completed by me, Peter, of Gernszheym, or of Mentz, during the year 1449, in the most glorious University of Paris." This isolated fact is the only authority for the assertion that Schœffer was a calligrapher, engaged by Gutenberg to design the letters and ornaments of the Bible of 42 lines. He may have been qualified for this service, but the thin letters and angular ornaments of his colophon are not like the thick types and flowing lines of Gutenberg's Bible. Like all poor students ​of his time, Schœffer was a copyist, but we have no evidence that he was a calligrapher or an illuminator. As a student of the University of Paris, he was qualified to read and correct the proofs of a Bible in Latin, and this may have been the duty for which he was engaged. Reduced Fac-simile of a Colophon written by Schœffer. [From Madden.]If so, he was not really needed in the printing office until the types were founded, or until 1453; but whether he came then or before, it is obvious that he entered the printing office as a boy from school, and that all he knew of printing was taught him by Gutenberg. He proved an apt scholar. Fust's confidence in his ability is enough to show that he had added skill to his knowledge, and that, when Gutenberg departed, he was competent to supervise and manage all the departments of the printing office.
Bernard thinks that Schœffer's first work in his new place was to change the appearance of the Bible of 42 lines by the cancellation of eight pages of 42 lines, and the substitution of pages of 40 lines, with summaries printed in red ink. The extraordinary licence then enjoyed by copyists allowed the compositor to abbreviate the words of a manuscript copy ​of 42 lines, until they were crowded into the space of 40 lines. The page was made of full length by leading out, or by widening the lines with bands of stout parchment.
The first book published by Fust, after his separation from Gutenberg, was the Psalter of 1457, a folio of 175 leaves, which is almost as famous as the Bible of 42 lines. Only seven fair copies of the edition of 1457 are known, and all of them are on vellum. The leaves of this book are nearly square, smaller in size than those of the Bible of 42 lines, but, like that book, they are made up, for the most part, in sections of ten nested leaves. The size of the printed page is irregular, but most pages are about 8 inches wide and 12 inches high. The Psalms are printed in types of Double-paragon body, and the introductory or connecting text in types of Double-great-primer body. As the cut or fashion of these types is like that of the Bibles of Gutenberg, it is possible that they were designed by the same hand. The leaf was not broad enough for the large-sized types, but a very large portion of it was given up to the initial letters and their pendants, which are of unusual dimensions. The space allotted to the print is small: but a few lines of the large types could be put on a page, and on many pages it was necessary to use small types. The fault of uneven or ragged outline on the right side of the page, which has been noticed in the Bible of 42 lines, is repeated more strikingly in the Psalter. Here and there spaces were made for plain chant notes of music, parts of which appear in printing ink, while other parts seem to have been retraced with a pen.
It is obviously an imitation not only of the copyist's but of the illuminator's work upon a fine manuscript. It was intended that the book should show the full capacity of the newly discovered art. Letters and lines in red ink are to ​be found on every page, and there are many very large and profusely ornamented initials in red and blue inks. To the young reader who is accustomed to the severe and colorless style of modern printing, the boldness and blackness of the stately text types of this Psalterm the brightness of its rubrics, and the graceful forms of its two-colored initials, are really bewildering. They lead him to the belief that the workmanship of the book is of the highest order. This has been the opinion of many eminent authors; the Psalter of 1457 has been called the perfection of printing.
Fac-simile of the First Page of the Psalter of 1457. [From Humphreys.]
Fac-simile, slightly reduced, of the Colophon of the Psalter of 1457. [From Falkenstein.]
​color was produced by painting the letters with a pen. The brilliancy of the black ink has consequently been unwisely praised, for it is a triumph not of printing, but of painting.
The same observation may be applied to the colored ink of the great initials. Savage denies the statement of Papillon that the red ink is of the most perfect beauty: he says that "it is a very heavy brick-dust color." Heineken says it is a dull red. A closer examination of the book revealed the fact to Savage that the initials also had been retraced or painted.
I could not avoid expressing my astonishment at seeing in some pages two distinct red inks: one, the dull color before spoken of, and the other, a red which, in printing, might fairly be called of the most perfect beauty; and I had nearly left it with the belief that there were two inks, red and blue, used in the printing of the book, which, for brilliancy of color, would set at defiance all the efforts of the present day to equal them. Some accidental circumstance caused me to view the book in a different light, when I discovered that the beautiful red was not printed but written in, so exactly like the type that it could only be ascertained by the want of indentation in the paper, which is invariably produced by pressure in the process of printing. By the same means, I also ascertained that the fine delicate blue was painted. Thus the colors produced by printing in the capital letters are reduced to two, namely, dull blue and dull red.
It is not difficult to explain this curious circumstance. The red and blue printing inks first used by Schœffer were so dull and faded that he would not suffer them to be compared with the brighter colors of fair manuscripts. He was compelled to brighten the colors by painting. Although sold as a printed book, the Psalter was the joint work of the printer and the illuminator, and the features which the modern bibliographer most admires are those made by the illuminator.
The process employed by the printer of the Psalter for securing an exact register of the colors was just as irregular. It is an error to assume that the two-colored initials were printed as similar work is now printed, by two impressions. Bernard says that the red and the blue blocks of the initials, ​each engraved on a separate piece of wood, were made to fit each other, so that the red block should fit accurately in the mortised blue block. In the process of printing, each block was separately inked, but the red block was dropped in the mortise of the blue block before impression was taken. After these painstaking preparations, exact register was inevitable.
Blades does not accept this explanation. He thinks that the engraving for the red and the blue ink was done on one block, which was not printed with ink, but was embossed in the paper as a guide to the colorist. He says that his examination of the two-colored initial letters of a Bible made by Sweynheim and Pannartz in 1467 proves that they were not printed, but embossed, in the white paper; that the paper mask on the frisket was left uncut over the engraving, so as to shield the white paper from the ink, and to deepen the indentation of the engraved lines; and that the illuminator made use of this indentation, as he would of a pencil drawing, to guide his pen or brush when laying on the colors. He further says that a similar operation was carelessly done in parts of the Psalter of 1457; that some of the spiral lines, finials and ornaments v/ere left uncolored, but that the process was plainly exposed by the indentation of the engraved lines.
It is not necessary to accept Blades' opinion that the coloring was done entirely with pen or brush: the few uncolored lines in the initials of the Mentz Psalter may be regarded as blemishes occasioned by an accidental overlapping of the mask on the frisket. Savage's statement that the blocks were printed with ink is too positive to be disputed. Nor is it necessary to accept the hypothesis of Bernard that the blocks were engraved in two pieces and mortised, that they might be printed by one impression. We may rightfully suppose ​that Schœffer tried to imitate the work of the illuminator by the imitation of his method. To engrave the initial and the ornament around it on one block, to paint the letter in one color and the ornament in another, and to print both colors by one impression, seemed the surest way to do the work. That this was the intention of the designer of the letters is evident from the manner in which the colors are divided. Contrary to the usage of the illuminators, who were fond of interweaving colors, each color was kept apart in a mass, that it might be inked with greater facility. And this inking was probably done with a brush. Blue ink was painted on the letter, and red ink on the ornament, at a great sacrifice of time, but with neatness and without any interference of the colors. It should not surprise us that exact register was secured, but it was more a feat of painting than of printing.
Setting aside the colors, the workmanship of the Psalter is not neater than that of the Bible of 42 lines. The right side of every page is much more ragged through bad spacing; typographical errors are more frequent; the lines are often bowed or bent in the centre from careless locking up. The presswork is not good; the pages are dark and light from uneven inking, and the types have a grimy appearance, as if ​they had been inked with foul balls and printed on over-wet vellum. The colophon or imprint attached to this book says:
This book of Psalms, decorated with antique initials, and sufficiently emphasized with rubricated letters, has been thus made by the masterly invention of printing and also of type-making, without the writing of a pen, and is consummated to the service of God, through the industry of Johan Fust, citizen of Mentz, and Peter Schœffer of Gernszheim, in the year of our Lord 1457, on the eve of the Assumption [August 14].
This imprint is ingeniously worded. Fust and Schœffer do not say, in plain words, that they were the inventors of printing; they invite attention to the red ink and the two-colored initials which were here used in printing, with fine effect. They speak of rubricated printing and of the invention of printing as if they were inseparable. They suppress the name of Gutenberg, and induce the reader to believe that Fust and Schœffer were not only the first to print with letters in red ink, but the first to discover and use the masterly invention. This insinuated pretense had the effect which was, no doubt, intended. By many readers of that century, Peter Schœffer was regarded as the man who planned and printed the Psalter, the man who made the types, not only of this book, but of the Bible of 42 lines. Made bold by the silence of Gutenberg, Schœffer allowed, if he did not positively authorize, the statement to be made by his friends, that he was the true inventor of printing; that he took up the art where Gutenberg left it incomplete, and perfected it.
Before this assertion can be examined, it will be proper to consider the date of 1457 in the imprint of the Psalter. If Schœffer planned and printed the book, he did all the work in the twenty-one months following Gutenberg's expulsion from the partnership. This is an unreasonable proposition, for the book should have been in press or in preparation as long as the Bible of 42 lines. It is quite probable that the Psalter was planned and left incomplete by Gutenberg. The types, which are like those of Gutenberg's Bible, are unlike any types ​subsequently made by Schœffer. The great initials in colors are of the same design as the initials of the Donatuses shown by Fischer, and by him attributed to Gutenberg. The careful manner in which they were engraved indicates experience as well as skill on the part of the engraver; but it is not possible that the engraver was Schœffer, or any workmen attached to his office, for Schœffer never after printed any engravings on wood of equal merit. The sumptuous style of the Psalter is unlike that of any book afterward made by Schœffer; it is in a style which he did not originate, and could not sustain. He reprinted it in 1459, in 1490, and in 1502, but the later editions were not printed so well as the first. The inferiority of the later workmanship is evidence that the master mind who planned the work was not at the head of the printing office.
On the sixth day of October, 1459, Fust published the Rationale Durandi, or the exposition, by Durandus, of the services of the church. It is a folio of 160 leaves, 2 columns to the page, in types on English body, 63 lines to the column. It has many rubricated letters and lines, and ends with a colophon, in red ink, worded like the Psalter of 1457, but with the addition of the words, "clerk of the diocese of Mentz," after the name of Peter Schœffer. The statement in the colophon, that it was made without the writing of a pen, is not entirely true. There are two kinds of copies: one has printed capitals like those of the Psalter, the other has illuminated initials. To provide suitable spaces for these written initials, which are of large size, the types were overrun and re-arranged.
If Schœffer had been an able calligrapher, he would have ​demonstrated his ability by the production of types of finer proportions than those of Gutenberg. If he was an expert type-founder, and the inventor of the type-mould, he should have proved his skill by casting types of neater finish. The first types made by him or by his order after his separation from Gutenberg are exhibited in the Rationale Durandi, but they do not warrant the opinion that he was a very skillful designer or an ingenious type-founder. The combination of Gothic and Roman which he there exhibited is evidently an imitation of the Round Gothic face used by Gutenberg in the Letters of Indulgence and the Catholicon. Schœffer's types present no features of superiority: they show mannerisms of engraving so like those of Gutenberg's types as to lead to the opinion that both were made by the same punch-cutter.
Fac-simile of the Text Types of the Rationale Durandi. [From Bernard.]
In the following year (1460), Schœffer and Fust finished a stout folio, which was printed in a Round Gothic face on the larger body of Great-primer. This book, the Constitutions (or Body of Divinity) of Pope Clement v, with the Commentaries of Bishop John Andrew, has been much admired by bibliographers for its composition. The fac-simile on a following page shows the text of the pope nested in the commentaries of the bishop—truly "a rivulet of text in a meadow of notes." In some pages the text occupies about one-third, in other pages about one-sixth, of the space assigned to the print ​The composition of pages so unevenly balanced must have taxed the ingenuity of the compositor, but he was materially aided by the licence permitting frequent use of abbreviations.
Fac-simile of the Types of the Bible of 1462. [From Bernard.]
Fac-simile of a part of a Page of the Constitutions of Pope Clement v. The paragraph marks were written in red ink. [From Humphreys.]
The war between Diether and Adolph for the possession of the electorate of Mentz was the occasion of some curious proclamations which were printed in the types of Schœffer. Two editions, one in Latin, one in German, of a Bull of Pope Pius ii against the Turks, dated October 22, 1463, have also been attributed to Schœffer.
The capture and sack of Mentz brought great misfortune to Fust and Schœffer. We are told that the house and materials of Fust were burned; but it is plain that he saved his punches and matrices, for we see that the old faces of type were used in all the later books of Fust and Schœffer. The printed proclamations of Adolph show that Fust soon refurnished his office, and began to print. With his fellow- citizens, he suffered from the paralysis to industry inflicted by the war. There was no encouragement for enterprise. There is no book bearing the imprint of Fust and Schœffer between the years 1462 and 1464. The unemployed workmen of Fust and ​Schœffer were obliged to leave the city. In leaving it, they carried with them the knowledge of the new art, which, in a few years, they established in all the larger cities of Europe.
The Bible of 1462 found few purchasers in Mentz. The demand in the city had already been supplied with the Bibles of 36 lines and of 42 lines, and buyers from abroad shunned a city subject to siege and to civil war. Leaving Schœffer to take care of the business of the printing office, Fust took the unsold Bibles to Paris, where he believed they would find a more generous appreciation. For it seems that, in 1458, the king of France had sent Nicholas Jenson to Mentz to get a knowledge of the practice of typography, the fame of which had then reached France, and it is supposed that Jenson gave to Fust the information that there was a demand for printing in Paris. This is the official record of the proposed mission.
On the third day of October, 1458, the king [Charles vii], having learned that Messire Guthemburg, chevalier, a resident of Mentz in Germany, a man dexterous in engraving and in types and punches, had perfected the invention of printing with types and punches, curious concerning this mystery, the king ordered the chiefs of the mint to nominate some persons of proper experience in engraving of a similar nature, so that he could secretly send them to the said place, to obtain information about the said form [type-mould] and invention, there to hear, to consider, and to learn the art. This mandate of the king was obeyed, and it was directed that Nicholas Jenson should make the journey, by means of which the knowledge of the art and its establishment should be achieved in this realm, and it should be his (Jenson's) duty to first give the art of printing to the said realm.
​The description of printing here given is singularly exact. It is not surprising that the existence of the new art was then known in Paris, for the colophon to the Psalter of 1457 had announced the masterly invention; but it is strange that this document specified its characteristic features—the formen, or the matrices and type-mould, the types, punches and engraving. We see that the secret was revealed; that Frenchmen in 1458 had a correct idea of the vital principle of printing, and that all they required was a knowledge of its manipulations.
Eager to prevent the threatened rivalry of Jenson, Fust appeared in Paris, in 1462, with copies of the Bible, while Jenson was ineffectually soliciting the new king to aid him. So far from being persecuted in Paris, Fust was received with high consideration, not only by the king, but by the leading men of the city. He was encouraged to establish in Paris a store for the sale of his books, and to repeat his visit.
In 1465, Schœffer printed the Decretals of Boniface viii, a folio of 141 leaves, each page containing a text in large types, surrounded by notes in small types. Red letters and lines are introduced, but there are no engravings, and the presswork is in no point better than that of the Bible of 1462. The colophon exhibits an unscrupulous appropriation of the ​words of the colophon of the Catholicon of 1460; but, unlike the printer of that book, Fust and Schœffer here advertise themselves as the men most intimately connected with the great invention. We can plainly see their strong desire to be regarded as the first printers, but there is as yet no clear statement that Schœffer was the real inventor of printing.
In the same year was printed by Fust and Schœffer an edition of The Offices of Cicero, a small quarto of 88 leaves, in their smaller size of Round Gothic types. To make the book of proper thickness, and perhaps to improve the appearance of the types, which show signs of wear, Schœffer put thick leads, about one-tenth of an inch thick, between the lines. As it is the first book in which leads of perceptible thickness were used, this real improvement in printing may be attributed to Schœffer. This edition of Cicero is also distinguished as the first book in which Greek letters were printed; but these letters were not types—they we're engraved on wood in a rude manner. This edition of Cicero has the following colophon:
This very celebrated work of Marcus Tullius, I, John Fust, a citizen of Mentz, have happily completed, through the hands of Peter, my son, not with writing ink, nor with pen, nor yet in brass, but with a certain art exceedingly beautiful. Dated 1465.
The Cicero was reprinted on February 4, 1466. Soon after its publication, Fust made another journey to Paris. Before he could perfect his arrangements for the sale of his books, Paris was depopulated by the plague, and it is the common ​belief that Fust was one of its victims. This is not certainly known, but he was dead on the thirtieth day of October, 1466, the date of the first mass instituted for him at the Church of Saint Victor at Paris, where his body was buried.
After Fust's death, Peter Schœffer took his place at the head of the printing house. It seems, however, that he had a partner, one Conrad Fust, or Conrad Hanequis, who was, no doubt, the Henlif mentioned in the record of the Church of Saint Victor. A book belonging to the Church of Saint Peter of Mentz contains the following record of their application for the manuscript of a book to which they wished to refer:
On Tuesday evening, January 14, 1468, the dean and the canons of the chapter being assembled in the court of Rhingrave, the discreet man, Conrad Fust, citizen of Mentz, respectfully requested of their reverences that they would be pleased to lend to him, and also to Peter, the husband of his daughter, a book from the library of our church, to be used as a copy, namely: the Saint Thomas [of Aquinas], entitled Liber super quarto sententiarum, and of which they wish to make many copies. The canons, considering that this request was just and pious, and that it would be productive of good, consented to the request, on condition, however, that he should replace this book, together with the Decretals of Boniface, and further, that he should give proper security to the canons. It was so done.
​Soon after Gutenberg's death, Schœffer put forth this artful claim for recognition as one of the inventors of the new art:
Moses, in the plan of the tabernacle, and Solomon, in the plan of the temple, did nothing more than imagine a meritorious work. The merit of constructing the temple was greater than Solomon's thought. Hiram and Beselehel, greater than Solomon, improved on the plans of Solomon and Moses. He who is pleased to endow mighty men with knowledge has given us two distinguished masters in the art of Portrait of Peter Schœffer. [From Dahl.]engraving, both bearing the name of John, both living in the city of Mentz, and both illustrious as the first printers of books. In company with these masters, Peter hastened toward the same end. The last to leave, he was the first to arrive; for he excelled in the science of engraving, through the grace of Him only who can give genius and inspiration. Hereafter every nation may procure proper types of its own characters, for he excels in the engraving of all kinds of types. It would be almost incredible were I to specify the great sums which he pays to the wise men who correct his editions. He has in his employ, the professor Francis, the grammarian, whose methodical science is admired all over the world. I, also, am attached to him, not by any greed of filthy lucre, but by my love for the general good, and for the honor of my country. Oh that they who set the types and they who read the proofs would free their texts from errors! The lovers of literature would certainly reward them with crowns of honor when with their books, they come to aid the students in thousands of schools.
​In this colophon, Schœffer claims superior skill as a letter-cutter. This pretension must be tested by his works. His first types, on English body, appeared in 1459, at least four years after Gutenberg's expulsion from the partnership; his next types, on Great-primer body, appeared in 1462; his last types, a very bold-faced Round Gothic on English body, were first shown in 1462, and this new face is but a font of small letters fitted to the capitals of the English of 1459. These are the only types made by Schœffer. If we compare them with the types of Gutenberg, it will be perceived that they are fewer in number and of inferior design and execution. It is absurd for Schœffer to claim even equal merit with Gutenberg either as letter-cutter or type-founder. Fac-simile of the Types of the Latin Grammar of 1468. A bold-faced Round Gothic on English Body. [From Bernard.]Schœffer's real merit is to be found in his eminence as a man of business. He was, no doubt, chosen as Gutenberg's successor, for his presumed ability as a manager and a sharp financier. This presumption was warrantable. His subsequent management of the printing office shows that he was a thorough man of business—a born trader. He has not shown that he was a mechanic or an inventor. Like John Fust, he practised printing, not because he loved it for its own sake, but because he loved its excitement and its promised rewards.
​Schœffer established agencies for the sale of his books in Lubec and Frankfort, and probably in other cities. He sold not only his own books, but those of other printers. We have many evidences that he was unwearied in the prosecution of his business, which seems to have been attended with much risk of loss. His prosperity was at its highest point in 1476, in which year he printed four large books. After 1480, his interest in the printing office began to decline. Between 1490 and 1502, but six books were issued from his office. It is worthy of note that his last book was the fourth edition of the Psalter, the book with which he began his typographical career.
During his later years, Schœffer was made a judge. His official duties prevented him from giving close attention to his printing office; but printing was neglected by him because it had almost ceased to be profitable. He had competitors, not only in Rome, Paris and Venice, but in all the larger cities of Germany, and even in Mentz and Strasburg—competitors who were more skillful as printers and more shrewd as publishers. They had perceived that the art of printing would be of little advantage to them, and of little service to the world, if its practice was confined to the servile imitation of manuscript books, or if it expected to derive a generous support exclusively from the rich, or from men of taste and men of letters. The younger printers saw that it was necessary that books ​should be made more cheaply, and in more convenient forms. With this end in view, they introduced the cheaper size of octavo, which was much handier than the unwieldy folio or quarto. The rubricated letters and lines were supplanted by initials and borders engraved on wood and printed with the types in black ink. The fashion of surrounding a text with notes, and of making notes and text in measures of different width and length on every page, was abandoned: the text was put at the top and the notes at the bottom. Signatures, catch-words, paging-figures, blank spaces between chapters, and the division of matter in paragraphs, were introduced. But the greatest innovation was in the letters themselves. When Nicholas Jenson introduced Roman types, and proved the superior legibility of light and simple lines, the popularity of the sombre Gothic in Southern Europe came to an end. The new fashions were adopted by many printers in Germany, but they were not approved by Schœffer, who resisted them till his death. In his judgment, the only model for a printed book was the Gothic manuscript copy, and he copied it as closely as he could, with all its imperfections.
This curt review of the works and workmanship of Peter Schœffer should be enough to show that his reputation as the father of letter-founders, and the inventor of matrices and the type-mould, is entirely undeserved. His types show that he had no skill as a letter-cutter or mechanic. It is not possible that a man who has shown such feeble evidences of mechanical ability could have been the first inventor of the matrices and the type-mould. While Gutenberg and Fust were living, Schœffer never made the claim that he was the inventor, or even a co-inventor, of printing. But when they were buried, he claimed that he was superior to both, and that he was really the first to enter the sanctuary of the art. In 1468, he ​falsely said that although Gutenberg was the first inventor, he was the man who perfected the art. It seems that he must have told his friends many things about his pretended services which he was unwilling to print. In 1503, John Schœffer said in his first book that he was a descendant of the inventor of the almost divine art of printing. In 1509, he says in another book that his grandfather was the first inventor of printing. In 1515, he printed this extraordinary statement:
The printing of this chronicle was completed in the year of our Lord 1515, in the vigil of the Virgin Margaret, in the noble and famous city of Mentz, where the art of printing was first developed, by John Schœffer, descendant of the honest man, John Fust, citizen of Mentz, and inventor of the before-mentioned art. It was in the year 1450, in the 13th indiction, under the reign of the very illustrious Roman Emperor Fredericii, the very reverend father in Christ, Lord Theodoric, grand cup-bearer of Erpach, prince elector, occupying the archiepiscopal chair in Mentz, that this John Fust began to devise, and finally invented, solely through his own genius, the art of printing. Aided by divine favor, in the year 1452, he had so far improved and developed his art, that he was able to print; in which work, however, he was indebted for many improvements to the ingenuity of Peter Schœffer of Gernszheim, his workman and his adopted son, to whom, in acknowledgment of his many services and his skill, he gave the hand of his daughter, Christina Fust. These two men, John Fust and Peter Schœffer, carefully retained to their own advantage the secrets of the art; and for this purpose, they demanded from their workmen and servants an oath that they should not in any way divulge the process. Notwithstanding this precaution, in the year 1462 the knowledge of the art was carried by their workmen to distant countries, and printing thereby secured a wide development.
​The thorough dishonesty of this statement is abundantly proved by its suppression of the name and services of Gutenberg. It is also evident that the writer could not, or dared not, point out the improvements which he alleges were made by Schœffer. This deficiency was soon supplied by a more credulous writer. About 1514, Trithemius, one of the most learned men of that century, wrote the following description of the invention, which he says he had from Peter Schœffer himself:
It was at this period (1450) in Mentz, a city of Germany on the Rhine, and not in Italy, as some people have falsely asserted, that this admirable, and till then unheard-of, art of printing books by the aid of types was planned and invented by John Gutenberg, a citizen of Mentz. When he had spent all his property in his search after this art, and was almost overwhelmed with difficulties, unable to find relief from any quarter, and meditating the abandonment of his project, Gutenberg was enabled by the counsel and by the money of John Fust, also a citizen of Mentz, to finish the work which he had begun.
They first printed, with engravings of letters on blocks of wood, arranged in proper order in the manner of ordinary manuscripts, the vocabulary then called the Catholicon; but with the letters on these blocks they were not able to print anything else, for the letters were not movable, but fixed and unalterable upon the blocks, as has been stated. To this invention succeeded another much more ingenious. They discovered a method of founding the forms of all the letters of the Latin alphabet, which they called matrices, from which [matrices] they again founded types, either in tin or in brass, strong enough for any pressure, which [types ?] before this had been cut by hand. In right earnest, I was told, nearly thirty years ago, by Peter Schœffer of Gernszheim, citizen of Mentz, the son-in-law of the first inventor, that this art of printing had encountered, in its first essays, great difficulties. For, when they were printing the Bible, they were obliged to expend more than 4,000 florins before they had printed three sections [sixty pages]. But the Peter Schœffer already mentioned, at that time a workman, but afterward son-in-law, as has been said, of the first inventor, John Fust, a man skillful and ingenious, devised a more easy method of founding types, and thus gave the art its present perfection. And the three men kept secret among themselves, for a while, this method of printing, up to the time when their workmen were deprived of the work, without which they were unable to practise their trade, by whom it was divulged, first in Strasburg, and afterward in other cities.
​There are many inaccuracies in this statement Gutenberg and Fust are represented as foolishly squandering money in vain efforts to invent xylography, a method of printing then in common use in many cities of Germany, Italy and Holland. The Catholicon, which is mentioned as one of the productions of block-printing, was printed from metal types in 1460. In the beginning, Gutenberg is acknowledged as the inventor of printing, yet, a few lines further, we are told that Fust was the first inventor. And it seems that Gutenberg could do nothing with his invention until helped by the advice, as well as the money, of John Fust. After the improved invention, Gutenberg and Fust fell in hopeless difficulties, having spent four thousand florins before they had completed sixty pages of the Bible. From these difficulties they were extricated by Peter Schœffer, "son-in-law of the first inventor," who invented a more easy method of making types, and who gave the art its present perfection, and without whose aid the earlier inventions would have been of little value. The intention of the writer is plain: Gutenberg, Fust and Schœffer may be regarded as co-inventors, but Schœffer did the most effective service.
It is a curious fact that this paper, which has been so often quoted as evidence in favor of Schœffer's invention of matrices, ​positively says that matrices had already been used by Fust and Gutenberg. Before Schœffer's name is mentioned, it is said that "they" [Fust and Gutenberg] discovered a method of making matrices. Trithemius says that Schœffer's contribution to the invention was "a more easy method of founding types, by which he gave the art its present perfection." He does not explain this easy method. We do not know whether his claimed improvement was in the mould or matrix, in its construction or in its manipulation; but it was not origination or invention, it was improvement only. The passage which seems to say that the first types were cut by hand does not require much comment. Trithemius may have misunderstood, and incorrectly reported, what he heard, or Schœffer may have misrepresented the facts. It is evident that Trithemius is in error; for cut types, cut either as to body or as to face, never were, never could have been used. The most trustworthy evidences tell us that the earliest types were cast in a mould.
If the word formen, which is found in the record of the trial of Strasburg, be construed as the same word must be construed in the colophon to the Catholicon of 1460, in the acknowledgment of Dr. Humery in 1468, and in the order of the King of France in 1458, then we have the most complete evidence that the matrices and the accompanying type-mould were used by Gutenberg long before he knew Schœffer.
It was not necessary that Trithemius should have told us that he derived this curious information from Peter Schœffer. In these perversions of truth we may see the vanity of the man who had already boasted that he was the first to enter the sanctuary of the art. The unreasonableness of his claim ​to the invention of matrices, or to the perfection of printing, may be inferred from the fact that, although he was a judge, a man of distinction, and a successful publisher for more than forty years, during the period when the value of printing was fully appreciated, he was never noticed in any way as a great benefactor. Neither the emperor nor elector gave him any distinction as the founder of a great art; no one put up a stone to his memory, honoring him as an inventor; no printer of that century regarded him as aught more than a thrifty publisher. His reputation has been created entirely by his own boasts and those of his family; and it is a most damaging circumstance that these boasts were not made until Gutenberg and Fust were dead, and that the statement written by Trithemius was not published until all the witnesses to the invention were dead, and there could be no contradiction.
There are many facts which show the falsity of Schœffer's claim. Setting aside the evidences in favor of the probable priority of the types of the Bible of 36 lines, the record of the lawsuit between Gutenberg and Fust virtually tells us that the types of the Bible of 42 lines had been made, perhaps in 1452, but not later than 1453. That these types were founded in matrices, were of neater cut, more exact as to body, and better founded than any afterward made by Schœffer, is apparent at a glance. They prove that the true method of type-making had already been found. If Schœffer invented the matrices from which these types were made, he should have perfected this invention in 1451. But Schoeffer was a copyist at Paris in 1449, and it is not certain that he was with Gutenberg before 1453. Here we encounter an impossibility. It cannot be supposed that a young collegian, fresh from books, without experience in mechanics, could invent, off-hand, a complicated method of type-making, upon which Gutenberg had been working for many years.
There is still another version of this invention of matrices by Schœffer, the version of Jo. Frid. Faustus, which has been often paraded as conclusive testimony in Schœffer's favor.
The unknown author further says that John Gutenberg was one of the friends to whom Fust and Schœffer showed the wood types; that Gutenberg, professing to admire their ingenuity, took a great interest in their enterprise, and lent Fust and Schœffer money, thereby entangling them in an agreement, from which they could not extricate themselves until Gutenberg had acquired a right to use the invention, by which use he wrongfully enjoys the honor of first inventor. Here we may stop. It would be a waste of time to expose, one by one, the falsehoods of a statement so flatly contradicted by many unimpeachable evidences. It is very clear that the writer had no new facts to tell us about the invention. He has told us not how it was made, but how he wished it had been made that it might redound to the honor of the Fusts.
What later writers have said about the value of Schœffer's services need not be considered, for they also have produced no new facts: they have based their opinions entirely on the incorrect information of Faustus, Trithemius and Schœffer. We may pass, without further delay, to the examination of the claims made for other alleged inventors of printing.
* ↑ Bernard's conjectures as to the reason for this change are plausible. He says: The sales of the Bible had not been so great as Fust had expected. Envious copyists had probably fostered a prejudice against the printed Bible as purely mechanical copying, and for that reason, or on account of its known errors, inferior to the ordinary manuscript. Fust hoped to remove these objections, and to attract purchasers by giving the unsold copies the appearance of a new edition. Madden does not accept this hypothesis. He thinks that the two kinds of copies were composed at the same time by different compositors, who, setting their types from dictation, not seeing the manuscript copy, made their abbreviations without uniformity, and, as a necessary consequence, produced pages of unequal length. This explanation is quite as reasonable.
* ↑ It could, with more propriety, be called a ritual. The psalms are followed by prayers, collects, litanies, the service for the dead, hymns, etc. But it is always described as a psalter.
* ↑ The rubricated capital letters on the larger body, which are very large and square, might be regarded as another incomplete font, for which small letters had not been provided.
* ↑ Savage said, before he had critically examined the ink of the book: It is a curious fact that, under Fust and, Gutenberg, the process [of printing in colors} should be carried nearly to perfection; for some of the works they printed, both in the quality of the ink and in the workmanship, are so excellent that it would require all the skill of our best printers, even at the present day, to surpass them in all respects: and I do not hesitate to say, that, in a few years after, the printers were actually superior to us in the use of red ink, both as to color and as to the inserting of a great number of single capital letters in their proper places in a sheet, with a degree of accuracy and sharpness of impression that I have never seen equaled in modern workmanship. Decorative Printing, London, 1822, pp. 6 and 7. After a closer inspection, Savage discovered that the red was painted. Papillon declared that the red ink was of the most perfect beauty. Chatto said that this earliest known production [of the press of Fust and Schœffer] remains to the present day unimpaired as a specimen of skill in ornamental printing. The art of printing was perfected by Fust and Schoeffer. Jackson and Chatto, Wood Engraving, p. 168.
* ↑ He says the ink was dull yellow: On some of the leaves where music is given there is an appearance as if the oil in the ink had penetrated through the vellum and tinged the opposite side of the leaf with a dingy yellow. This had been supposed to be the case, but I find that the original tune had been printed with a dull yellow ink, and that subsequently a different one had been written in over the first, with black ink to match the color of the text; and so exactly is this effect produced that, if it were not for the remains of the printing of the original tune, it might pass unsuspected of being any other than the production of the press. Practical Hints on Decorative Printing, pp. 49 and 51.
* ↑ De l'origine, etc., vol. i. p. 225.
* ↑ History of Printing, p. 85.
* ↑ Some writers say that the earliest printing inks were gum-water colors, which could be washed off the vellum with a wet sponge. But the ink of the Psalter was a true printing ink, a smoke-black mixed with oil. The modern pressman, who has ineffectually tried to make ordinary printing ink stick to parchment imperfectly cleansed of oily matter, will at once attribute this failure of the printer of the Psalter to the oiliness of the vellum and the weakness of his printing ink.
* ↑ Practical Hints on Decorative Printing, p. 50.
* ↑ This method of printing in colors was patented by Solomon Henry of Great Britain in 1786, and in another form by Sir William Congreve in 1819, and by him applied to the printing of maps. Abridgment of Specifications relating to Printing, London, 1859. Improvements in machine presses have put out of use these methods of printing in colors.
* ↑ Life and Typography of William Caxton, vol. ii, p. liii, note.
* ↑ Blades shows fac-similes of the printed work of Colard Mansion, in which we see that his red and black were printed by the same impression. Life and Typography of William Caxton, vol. i, p. 43. Also, plates iii and viii.
* ↑ The modern printer who may regard this method of color-printing as puerile and wasteful of time, must be reminded that, slow as it may now seem, it was a quicker method than that of hand-drawing and painting. The difference between the the old and the modern process of printing in colors will be fully stated, by saying that Schœffer printed, probably, but forty copies of this initial in one day, and that the modern pressman on a machine press would be required to produce, from two impressions, about twenty-five hundred copies in one day. Far from being a specimen of the skill of the early printers, this initial B is a flagrant example of their inexperience and the rudeness of their methods.
* ↑ See fac-simile, plate 15, Humphrey's History of Printing.
* ↑ See fac-simile on page 455 for frequent transposition of the letters t and c. Also in first line of same fac-simile, Presen spalmorum for Presens psalmorum.
* ↑ Fournier thinks that all the letters of the Psalter were cut on wood, De l'origine, etc, de l'imprimerie, p. 231. But Bernard says: "After a careful study of many copies, I declare that this book is certainly printed with types of founded metal, and founded, too, with admirable precision." De l'origine et des débuts, etc., vol. i, p. 224.
* ↑ The last edition of the book, printed by his son, John Schœffer, in 1516, shows the great initial B entirely in red ink. It proves that the letter previously printed in two colors was engraved on one block. It proves also that the original meth-od of painting the letter in two colors had been found expensive and impracticable.
* ↑ The one first printed is dated April 6th, 1462: it is a manifesto, from Diether, notifying all people that he is the lawful ruler, and that Adolph is the usurper. This document, which is in German, contains 106 lines of Great-primer type, and is printed on a sheet of the size 12½ by 17¼ inches. But when Adolph captured Mentz, he issued counter proclamations. First of all was a proclamation dated August 8, 1461, from the Emperor Frederic iii, announcing the deposal of Diether. it was printed on a half sheet, in German, and in the types of the Bible of 1462. The other proclamations were bulls or briefs in Latin, against Diether, from Pope Pius ii, dated at Tivoli. All of them are in Round Gothic types on English body. The first bull warns the people to shun Diether as they would a pestilent beast; the second is the warrant for the installation of Adolph; the third orders the clergy to obey Adolph; the fourth orders the people to obey Adolph, and releases them from allegiance to Diether. The fifth bull relates to a different matter: it sets forth the unsuccessful mission of Cardinal Bessarion to the Turks. Bernard, De l'origine, etc., vol. i, p. 242.
* ↑ Bernard, De l'origine, vol. ii, p. 273.
* ↑ We do not know whether Jenson acquired his knowledge of printing secretly or openly — in the office of Gutenberg or Schœffer, or elsewhere, but he succeeded in his undertaking. Nor is the date of his return to Paris known. Madden thinks that Jenson was taught the art not in Mentz, but in Cologne. During his absence, Charles vii died. On the 15th August, 1461, Louis xi, his son, was crowned at Rheims. A lover of books, and the founder of the great National Library, the king should have been deeply interested in the mission of Jenson, but he had formed a strong dislike to all the officers that had been appointed by his father, and began his reign by dismissing the court favorites. Jenson was treated as one of their number. All his efforts to get a suitable recompense for what he had done, and money to establish an office in Paris, were unavailing, and he was obliged to abandon Paris. He went to Venice, and made himself famous by his new design of Roman letter, and by the admirable presswork of his books.
* ↑ These Bibles have been the occasion of an incredible legend which was first told by one John Walchius. It would not deserve repetition here if it had not so often appeared in modern literature. He says that Fust offered one copy of this Bible to the king for sixty crowns, and another copy to the archbishop for fifty crowns. To tempt indifferent purchasers, he abated his price until it was but forty crowns, a price so small and so insufficient as to excite the greatest wonder. The purchasers of different copies, fearing trickery, compared their copies. Instead of discovering imperfection, they found an unvarying uniformity which was unaccountable. Meanwhile Fust was still offering for sale other copies, and all were exactly alike. As it was clearly impossible that any copyist could write so many books with this precision, it was obvious that Fust was in league with the Devil, and that the Bibles were their joint production. The logical process by which this conclusion was reached is not stated; but we are told that complaint was made, that Fust was arrested, and thrown in prison, from which he was not released until he had revealed the secret. The absurdity of the story is transparent. Bernard has shown that it rests on no valid authority.
* ↑ See page 435 of this book.
* ↑ In this year Conrad Sweinheym and Arnold Pannartz, who had established a printing office in the monastery of Subiaco, near Rome, printed an edition of Lactantius, in which Greek types were used.
* ↑ The phrase, neque ærea, must be understood as, not by engraving in brass or copper plates, or not by the process then employed by the copper-plate printers.
* ↑ The use of the words, Peter, my son, may be understood as the first acknowledgment by Fust of the marriage of his daughter to Schœffer.
* ↑ The Library of Geneva has a copy of this edition of Cicero, which contains, in his own handwriting, the acknowledgment of Louis de Lavernade, first president of Languedoc, that the book had been presented to him in Paris, by John Fust, in July, 1466.
* ↑ The record of this church says that the mass was instituted to John Fust, printer of books, "by Peter Scofer and Conrad Henlif," who gave to the church the Epistles of Saint Jerome, printed on parchment, and valued at 12 crowns of gold. In 1473, Schœffer established another mass for Fust and his wife Margaret, with the Dominicans at Mentz, for which he gave a copy of the Epistles of Jerome and of the Constitutions of Pope Clement v. As two books were here required, it shows that the price of books was rapidly depreciating.
* ↑ Bernard says that this Conrad was the son of John Fust, and that Christina Fust, who married Schœffer, was Conrad's daughter. The only evidence that this Christina was Conrad's daughter is the statement in the application, which is printed above. But this statement is not enough to overturn the contradictory statements of other writers of that day, who had better knowledge of the true relationship of all the parties. Wetter thinks that Conrad was another son-in-law to Fust. We know very little about him. It does not appear that he had any thing to do with printing before the death of Fust, nor did he exercise any known influence as a printer. His name is not to be found in any of Schœffer's books. It is not known when he died.
* ↑ This manuscript was returned, as had been agreed. It was probably used to collate the text of their edition of this book, a big folio of 548 double-columned pages in types on English body, which was completed by Schœffer and Conrad Fust, June 13th, 1469.
* ↑ This passage is an allusion to the running of the disciples to the sepulchre where Christ had been laid. "So they ran both together; and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre … yet went he not in. … Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre." St John, xx, 4, 6.
* ↑ Institutes of Justinian, 1468.
* ↑ It seems that this was done to avoid the expense of making a new mould, and to save the labor of cutting new capital letters—an evasion of duty not at all creditable to the alleged inventor of the type-mould, Gutenberg made four sizes of Pointed Gothic—the Paragon of the Bible of 42 lines, the Double-pica of the Bible of 36 lines, the Double-great-primer and Meridian of the Psalter of 1457—and three sizes of Round Gothic, the large English of the Letter of Indulgence of 31 lines, the small English of the Letter of Indulgence of 30 lines, and the Pica of the Catholicon of 1460. They were cast on seven distinct bodies. Schœffer's three faces of types, one of them imperfect, were cast on two bodies.
* ↑ He consigned his books to one Hans Bitz of Lubec, who died, leaving the debt unpaid.
* ↑ To become a freeman of the city of Frankfort, Schœffer paid a tax of 10 pounds 4 shillings.
* ↑ There is in Paris a treatise by Dun Scotus, printed by Anthony Koburger of Nuremberg in 1474, which contains a bill of sale written by Peter Schœffer, which states that the book was sold to one John Henry for three crowns of gold.
* ↑ His agent in Paris was Hermann Stathoen, who died there in 1474, before he had been made a citizen. According to the French law, all his effects reverted to the crown. The books of Schœffer were seized by the king's commissioners, and were scattered and sold before his partner Conrad Fust, or Henlif, could make a reclamation. He appealed to the king, Louis xi, who ordered that Schœffer should be recompensed by the payment of 2,425 crowns. This was a large sum for that day: it was nearly four times as large as the sum fixed on in a valuation of all the books in the Louvre in 1459.
* ↑ His son, John Schœffer, who had some control over the printing office before his father's death, timidly and tardily introduced paging-figures, but they were not regularly used in his later works. We may suppose that the father disliked the innovation. The invention of leads is the only improvement that can be attributed to Schœffer.
* ↑ Ten years before, John Schœffer had conceded full justice to Gutenberg, and had told the story with more truth. In the dedication of an edition of Livy, printed by him in 1505, John Schœffer uses this language: "Will your Majesty [addressing the Emperor Maximilian] deign to accept this book, printed in Mentz, the city in which the admirable art of typography was invented, in the year 1450, by the ingenious John Gutenberg, and was afterward perfected at the cost and by the work of John Fust and of Peter Schœffer …" This acknowledgment did not prevent the Emperor from making a subsequent official declaration, in the privilege or copyright for a grand edition of Livy, published by the same printer, and dated December 9, 1518, that the grandfather of John Schœffer had invented printing [chalcographia]. So much for the strength of audacious falsehood! Bernard, De l'origine et des débuts, vol. i, p. 309.
* ↑ Annales Hirsaugienses, vol. ii, p. 421.
* ↑ The description of the more ingenious method of "founding the forms of all the letters of the Latin alphabet, which they called matrices, from which [matrices] they again founded types, either in tin or in brass," has been denounced by many writers on typography as the confused statement of a man who did not thoroughly understand what he related, and who has reversed the proper order of the process of type-making. A more careful reading will show that Trithemius attempted to describe the process of matrix-making, which is set forth in page 302 of this book. He says the types were made either of brass or the of tin, for his memory failed him, and he could not recollect that it was the matrix which should have been of brass, and the type of tin. The characters "which before this had been cut by hand " may be regarded not as types, but as punches of soft metal. They would necessarily be damaged by pressure in the semi-fluid metal selected for making the matrices. The tools which Trithemius vainly tried to describe were the punch of steel and the mould and matrices of brass. That punches and matrices of wood or of soft metal unequal to hard pressure were used by the earlier printers is proved by variable shapes of their types.
* ↑ The impressions of Gutenberg, which clearly show that his types were cast and not cut, should outweigh the statements of all the chroniclers; but it may be proper to call attention to the fact that the types of the Bible of 42 lines were used by Schœffer in 1476, and that the types of the Letters of Indulgence and of the Bible of 36 lines were in use by Hauman at the end of the fifteenth century. If these types had been cut, they would have been soon worn out. The re-appearance of these faces fifty years after they were first used shows that the types of Hauman must have been cast from the matrices of Gutenberg.
* ↑ This version is found in Wolf's Monumenta Typographica, vol. i, pp. 466 and 469, under the heading of The Statement of an Unknown Author, and is attributed by Wolf to one Jo. Frid. Faustus of Aschaffenburg (who died in 1620), or to his son. Wolf admits (p. 452, note) that the identity of the author is not clearly established. It is probable that the statement was written by a descendant of John Fust, who was predisposed to magnify his services and those of his partner. Van der Linde calls the writer an arch liar. Bernard rejects the entire statement as unworthy of credit, or even of notice.