appearance in a perfect state at Mainz, and have seen that none of the particulars known to us of the life and career of Johan Gutenberg, who is alleged to have invented it, nor any of the books said to have been printed by him, afford us any basis for ascribing that honour to him, we will examine what has been said during a period of more than four hundred years on the question of the invention. For this purpose we will gather up into a chronological sequence (a) a few of the most important expressions used by the earliest printers in their colophons, (b) whatever documentary evidence there may be on the subject, and (c) some accounts of the earliest authors on the question. The Roman numerals i., ii., &c., are for the sake of convenient reference.
The earliest[1] testimony (i.) is the notarial instrument, dated the 6th of November 1455, of the lawsuit between Fust and Gutenberg, Early Testimonies. already mentioned above, which records transactions between the two men from August 1450 to November 1455, Fust speaking of “the work” and of “our common work”; Gutenberg of “tools” which he wanted to prepare, of “workmen's wages, house-rent, vellum, paper, ink, &c.,” of “such work” and of “the work of the books,” whereas the judges speak of “the work to the profit of both” and “their common use.”
(ii.) In the first[2] book published with a date (the Mainz Psalter, issued the 14th of August 1457 by Fust and Peter Schoeffer) it is From Book Colophons, &c. said that it was perfected at Mainz by an “adinventio artificiosa imprimendi ac caracterizandi absque calami ulla exaratione,” repeated and varied later, by the same printers in their colophons of the years 1459 to at least 1470. (iii.) In 1460 the colophon of the Catholicon published at Mainz without the printer's name, after stating that “the book was printed at Mainz, the genial city of the renowned German nation, which town God's mercy had deigned to prefer and adorn above the other nations of the earth by such an exalted light of genius and spontaneous gift,” adds that the book was printed and completed “non calami, stili, aut pennae suffragio, sed mira patronarum formarumque concordia, proporcione, et modulo.” This work (which is to be ascribed to Peter Schoeffer) is considered to have been printed by Gutenberg, and the mention of God's mercy, &c., is regarded as an allusion to the invention of printing. The phrase is, however, also found, with some variations, in the Liber sextus Decretalium, in the Summa of Thomas Aquinas, and in the Clementinae, published respectively on the 17th of December 1465, the 6th of March and the 8th of October 1467, by Fust and Schoeffer. (iv.) On the 17th of January 1465 Adolph II., archbishop of Mainz, by a public decree, appointed Gutenberg as his servant in reward for “his services,” but he does not say what kind of “services” he had rendered, nor does he speak of him as the inventor of printing, nor as a printer. (v.) In the Grammatica rhythmica, published in 1466 by Fust and Schoeffer, the third line of the colophon runs: “Hinc Nazareni sonet oda per ora Johannis,” which was formerly regarded as an allusion to Johann Fust or Johann Gutenberg, but which more probably refers to Johann Brunnen or Fons, the author of the grammar. (vi.) On the 26th of February 1468 Dr Homery wrote to the archbishop of Mainz the letter quoted above, from which it may be inferred that Gutenberg had been a printer, though nothing is said as to his being the inventor of printing. (vii.) In 1468 Sehoeffer reprinted Fons's Grammatica, in the colophon of which it is said: “At Moguntina sum fusus in urbe libellus meque (the book) domus genuit unde caragma venit.” (viii.) Schoeffer published on the 24th of May 1468 the 1st edition of Justiniani Imper. Institutionum juris libri VI., cum glossa. To this were added by way of colophon some verses commencing: “Scema tabernaculi,” &c., in which it is said that (the ornament of the church) Jesus “hos dedit eximios sculpendi in arte magistros . . . Quos genuit ambos urbs Moguntina Johannes, librorum insignes prothocaragmaticos,” which is regarded as an allusion to Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust as first or chief printers. (ix.) In the same year (1468) Johannes Andreae, bishop of Aleria, says, in the dedication of his edition of St Jerome's Epistles, published in that year (Dec. 13,) at Rome, to Pope Paul II., that “Germany is to be honoured for ever as having been the inventress of the greatest utilities. Cardinal Cusa wished that the sacred art of printing, which then (under Cardinal Cusa, who died on the 11th of August 1464) seemed to have arisen in Germany, were brought to Rome.” (x.) In 1470 Guil. Fichet, in an octastichon inserted in the Paris edition of 1470 of the Letters of Gasparinus of Bergamo, exhorts Paris to take up the almost divine art of writing (printing) which Germany is acquainted with (see below No. xiii.). In the same year Erhard Windsberg writes to the same effect in an epigram inserted in the Epistolae Phalaridis published at Paris about 1470. (xi.) In 1471 Ludov. Carbo, in the dedication of the Letters of Pliny to Borso, duke of Modena, speaks of the Germans having invented printing; Nicolaus Gupalatinus (Venice, 1471) of a German being the inventor of printing, and Nicolaus Perottus of the art which had lately come from Germany. (xii.) On the 21st of May 1471 Nicolas Jenson published an edition of Quintilian, edited and revised by Ognibene de Lonigo (Omnibonus Leonicenus), who in the preface speaks of its printer as “librariae artis mirabilis inventor, non ut scribantur calamo libri, sed veluti gemma imprimatur, ac prope sigillo, primus omnium ingeniose demonstravit.” (xiii.) About 1472 the first three printers of Paris published Gasparinus Pergamensis's Orthographiae liber, to which is prefixed (in the copy of the university library of Basel) a letter, dated the 1st of January, from Guillaume Fichet (see above No. x.), prior of the Sorbonne, to Robert Gaguin, in which he says that “it is rumoured that in Germany, ‘not far from the city of Mainz,’ a certain Johann Gutenberg (Johannes, cui cognomen Bonemontano) first of all invented the art of printing (impressoriam artem), by means of which books are made with letters of metal, not with a reed (as the ancients did), nor with the pen (as is done at present).” (xiv.) On the 14th of July 1474 Joh. Philippus de Lignamine published at Rome Chronica summorum pontificum imperatorumque, in which, between two entries, relating one to the 14th of July 1459 and the other to the 1st of October 1459, an undated paragraph is found saying that Jacobus with the surname of Gutenberg of Strassburg and a certain other one named Fustus, “imprimendarum litterarum in membranis cum metallicis formis periti, trecentas cartas quisque eorum per diem facere innotescunt apud Moguntiam Germanie civitatem.” It says the same of Mentelin, and (under 1464) of Conrad Sweynheym, Arnold Pannarts, and Udalricus Gallus. (xv.) On the 23rd of May 1476 Peter Schoeffer issued the 3rd edition of the Institutiones of Justinian, with the same imprint as in the edition of 1468 (see testimony viii.), but with the addition that Mainz is the “impressoriae artis inventrix elimatrixque prima.” (xvi.) In the Fasciculus temporum, issued at Cologne in 1478, it is stated under the year 1457 that the printers of books were multiplied on earth, deriving the origin of their art from Mainz. The earlier editions merely stated that the printers of books were multiplied on earth. (xvii.) In 1483 Matthias Palmer of Pisa, in the Chron. Euseb. published at Venice, stated under the year 1457 that students owe a great debt to Germany, where Johannes Gutenberg zum Jungen, knight of Mainz, invented the art of printing in 1440. (xviii.) In the same year, 1483, Jac. Phil. Foresta of Bergamo, in the Supplementum chronicorum, says under the year 1458 that the art of printing books was first discovered in Germany, according to some by Guthimberg of Strassburg, according to others by Faust (see xiv.), according to others by Nicolas Jenson (see xii.). (xix.) On the 6th of March 1492 Peter Schoeffer published the Niedersächsische Chronik of Conrad Botho, saying in the colophon that it was “geprent . . . From Documentary Evidence. in . . . Mentz, die eyn anefangk is der prentery.” (xx.) At the end of 1494 two Heidelber professors, Adam Wernher and Joh. Herbst, composed some Latin verses in honour of Johannes Gensfleisch (Gutenberg's family name turned into the Latin Ansicarus), whom they called “primus librorum impressor” and “impressoriae artis inventor primus.”[3] (xxi.) In 1499 Jacob Wimpheling (born at Schlettstadt 1450, died 1528) published (at Mainz, by P. Friedberg [?]) an Oratio in Memoriam Marsilii ab Inghen (d. 1396), in which he, on leaf 22 a, praises Joannes Ansicarus in Latin verse for his invention at Mainz. (xxii.) These verses are preceded by a Latin epitaph on Johann Gensfleisch, “artis impressoriae inventor” and “repertor,” written by Adam Gelthus, a relative of Gutenberg, adding that his remains rest in the Franciscan Church at Mainz. (xxiii.) In the same year (1499) Polydore Vergil (De inventoribus rerum, Venice, lib. ii. cap. 7) says that a certain Peter [Schoeffer ?], a German, invented in 1442 the art of printing at Mainz in Germany, as he had heard from the latter's countrymen; this statement was repeated in a Venice edition of 1503. In later editions “Peter” was altered to “Joh. Gutenberg.” (xxiv.) In the same year Koelhoff, rinter at Cologne, published Cronica van der hilliger Stat van Coellen, in which on fol. 311 b, the following statements occur: (1) The art of printing was found first of all in Germany at Mainz about the year 1440; (2) from that time till 1450 the art and what belonged to it were investigated; (3) and in 1450, when it was a golden year (jubilee), they began to print, and the first book that they printed was the Bible in Latin, in a large letter, resembling that with which at present missals are printed. (4) Although the art was found at Mainz, as aforesaid, in the manner in which it is generally employed now, yet the first prefiguration was found in Holland from out the Donatuses which were printed there before that time, and from and out of them was taken the beginning of the aforesaid art, and it was found much more masterly and exact (subtilis) than that other manner was, and has become more and more artistic. (5) Omnibonus wrote in a preface to Quintilian, and in some other books, too, that a Walloon
- ↑ The earliest would be the records of the Strassburg lawsuit of 1439, in which the word “trucken” is used, but we cannot accept them as genuine.
- ↑ Earlier is perhaps the Donatus issued by Peter Schoeffer, possibly before 1456, the colophon of which says that it was finished Arte nova imprimendi seu caracterizandi . . . absque calami exaratione (by a new art of printing or making letters . . . without the writing of a pen).
- ↑ These verses were not published at the time, but in the 19th century by F. J. Mone, Queliensamml. der bad. Landesgesch. iii. 163, from the contemporary MS. of Adam Wernher, preserved in the archives of Carlsruhe.—We pass over here a few books which merely say that the invention was made at Mainz: a Chronyk der landen van Overmaas, written by an inhabitant of Beek, near Maastricht, in the 15th century; the Chronycke van Hollandt (Leiden, 1517), &c.
