Procopius Waldvogel
Procopius Waldvogel (alternate spellings: Prokop Waldvogel or Procopius Waldfogel) was a medieval printer from Avignon. It is believed that he might have invented printing before Johannes Gutenberg. He flourished in the fifteenth century. Life. He was a German living in Avignon. He was a silversmith by trade. He fled from Prague during the Hussite troubles and arrived in Avignon in 1444. At Avignon he had two students: Manaud Vitalis and Arnaud de Coselhac. His name appears in several contracts of that time, most notably the one in which he agrees to provide Davin de Caderousse with movable metal  type of Hebrew letters. He disappeared from the historical record after 1446. Hebrew print and perhaps first print. In 2015 two Hebrew-letter printing-sheets with a total of 32 pages were found to be reused in the cover of a book from the 16th century. They were sent to the Institute of Hebrew Manuscript Research at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, and were Identified according to watermarks, the paper, the ink, the typset and typography as being from Avignon and printed in 1444, 11 years before Guttenberg began printing his famous bible in Latin letters. If this  assertion is true, it means that the first printing was accomplished by Waldvogel and in Hebrew letters. Career. It has been claimed that he owned molds for printing before Johannes Gutenberg in 1444. However, unlike Gutenberg, he did not print any books. He had two alphabets and various metal forms and he offered to teach the art of artificial writing to a schoolteacher. The French historian M. Requin believes, in 1890, that he might have invented the art of printing before Johannes Gutenberg. Unfortunately, Requin never showed any evidence that Waldvogel printed anything, and his allegations are long forgotten. He  was a contemporary of other printers of the time, which included Laurens Janszoon Coster, Jean Brito and Panfilo Castaldi.