John Faust died 1466
Channel: Age of Enlightenment
Date: 28/11/2015

. It has been pretended that when Faust went to Paris to sell a second edition of his bible of 1462, he was taken up on the supposition that he effected the printing of them by magic; but this story appears to be mere fable. There is reason to believe that he died of the plague in 1466, as the name of Schaefler alone is found in the books printed after that time at Mentz. According to certain German writers, the celebrated romance of Faustus, the subject of so much traditionary horror and admiration, and which has been since immortalized by the genius of Goethe, originated ., in the malice of the monks towards Faust, whose employment of printing deprived them of their gain as copiers, that occupation being almost exclusively in their hands. There seems however so little connexion between the birth-place, profession, &c. of the real and supposititious Faustus, that the conjecture is possibly founded only on the similarity of the name accidentally given to one of the legendary characters of the period.