his two rivals never neglect to print their names in full on every book which they published. Those who believe that Gutenberg was the inventor of printing suggest that he kept silent, as otherwise his creditors would have seized his copies and his printing-office. But this explanation cannot be accepted, as we have seen that Gutenberg was practically bankrupt at that time, and prosecuted as a defaulter; and the verbose colophon at the end of a gigantic folio book like the Catholicon, published at a time when there were perhaps not more than three printing offices in the world, would be calculated to draw attention to its printer and his residence, not to conceal him. Testimony v. (1466) can no longer be regarded as having any reference to Gutenberg or the invention of printing; vii. (1468) was formerly thought to mean: “I, the book, am cast (i.e. its types are cast) in the Mainz city, and the house whence the type came (= where the type was invented) produced me.” But of late years it has been shown that the author of the book, Johann Fons, was Peter Schoeffer's press-corrector. And, as he no doubt resided in Schoeffer's house, the two lines evidently mean: “I am a little book cast in Mainz, and I was born (= written) in the same house whence the type comes[1] (= where I am printed).” Testimony viii. (also of 1468) speaks of two Johannes (Gutenberg and Fust) as the “prothocaragmatici librorum quos genuit urbs Moguntina.” But this means, not that the first printers of books were born at Mainz, but that the two Iohannes (born) produced at Mainz were the chief printers of books.
When we now place together the clear documentary testimonies (i. to viii.) of the first fourteen years of printing (1454 to 1468) at Mainz Testimonies, 1454-1468. Mainz, we see that they all come from Mainz itself. Everybody connected with the art when speaking of it does so in the most public and unreserved manner; its importance was as fully realized and advertised then as it is now; the German nation is even congratulated on possessing it; there is never any secrecy about it; but from the moment that it begins to be mentioned there (say about 1456) it is called a new art. In the midst of all this publicity, however, the new art which Mainz and Germany possess is never spoken of as having been invented at Mainz or anywhere else in Germany. The supposed Mainz inventor (Gutenberg) even speaks himself on two occasions (certainly in the lawsuit of 1455, and presumably in the Catholicon of 1460) but never says that he made an invention. The archbishop of Mainz, too, speaks publicly of Gutenberg in 1465 (testimony iv.), and rewards him for services, but does not speak of him as the inventor of printing, nor even as a printer. Nor does Dr Homery, in his letter to the archbishop (testimony vi. of 1468), in which he refers to Gutenberg's printing apparatus, call him the inventor of printing.
In 1468 we enter on a new phase in the history of the invention. Even if we set aside testimony viii. as being merely local, testimony ix. (1468) speaks of the art of printing as having arisen in Germany. This testimony, however, does not come from Germany, nor from Mainz, but from Italy, and is supposed to have been inspired by the two German printers who had established a printing-office at Subiaco in 1465, and in 1467 at Rome, and who most likely learned their craft at Mainz.
As the two printers are mentioned in the testimony, and as it does not speak of Gutenberg, nor of Mainz, it is far more likely that it was merely derived from the colophons of Fust and Schoeffer, or from something that Cardinal Cusa had heard during his embassies in Germany. To the Mainz colophons we must also ascribe (a) the two testimonies of 1470 (x.) and (b) the three of 1471 (xi.), all five of which come from France and Italy. At last, in 1472 (testimony xiii.), the invention of printing is ascribed to Gutenberg of Mainz, but as a rumour, and the testimony comes from France. Guil. Fichet of Paris, who gives it, is supposed to have heard the rumour from the three German printers who commenced printing at Paris in 1470. And as two of them had resided, immediately before they came to Paris, in the university of Basel, and are supposed to have learnt their art there, the rumour is traced to “Bertolff von Hanauwe,” who appears in the lawsuit of 1455 as Gutenberg's servant and who was printing at Basel in 1468. But it came more likely from information which Fichet obtained from the St Victor Cathedral, near Mainz (of which Gutenberg had been a lay member), as he speaks of the art having been invented “not far from that town.” Testimony xiv. (1474) again comes from Italy, from Rome, and was perhaps derived from one of the German printers settled there at that time. It merely speaks of Gutenberg, Fust and Mentelin as printers, but says not a word which even touches upon the invention of the art. In testimony xv. (1476) we have the first definite mention of Mainz as the inventress of the art; it is given as an addition to the Mainz colophon of 1468 (see viii.). In 1478 Mainz is again mentioned in a Cologne testimony (xvi.) which gives evidence of research, as it is an amplification of an earlier one in which Mainz was not mentioned. Germany, Gutenberg and Mainz are again mentioned in the Venetian testimony xvii. (1483), which gives (under the year 1457) for the first time 1440 as the date of the invention. In the same year we have two earlier testimonies (xiv. and xii.) worked into one (xviii.), to the effect that printing was invented either by Gutenberg or by Fust or by Jenson. Testimony xix. (1492), which states that printing commenced at Mainz, is practically equivalent to xv. In 1494 and 1499 we have three German testimonies (xx., xxi., xxii.) as to Gutenberg being the inventor of printing; these, however, come, not from Mainz, but from Heidelberg; xxii. is given by a relative of Gutenberg, Adam Gelthus, and, as the latter resided at Heidelberg, it is clear that he was the real source of the other two Heidelberg testimonies (xx. and xxi.). Two years later, when Wimpheling, the author of testimony xxi., had left Heidelberg, he ascribed (xxv.) the invention of printing to Strassburg, though stating that Gutenberg was the inventor. Testimony xxiii. is recorded above to show the confusion that reigned in people's minds about 1500 regarding the invention. We must add to these testimonies those of 1504 (xxvii.) and 1505 (xxviii.), which are owing to Ivo Wittig, a canon and the keeper of the seals of the St Victor Cathedral, near Mainz, of which, according to its liber fraternitatis, Gutenberg had been a lay member.
Thus the Helmasperger document, the two Indulgences of 1454 and the 42-line Bible tell us, that in the period from August 1450 to 1456 the art of printing had commenced and been perfected at Mainz; but not a word is heard as to how it arose, or what its nature was. In the period from 1456 (if we place Schoeffer's 35-line Donatus in this year) to 1468 various books were printed at Mainz with colophons in which the art of printing is proclaimed as a by-invention of printing; more especially as a new art; its mechanism is fully described and said to be quite different from the mode of producing books by means of the pen; but, no one says that it was invented at Mainz, or mentions the name of a Mainz inventor.
In the period from 1468 to 1505, however, we have (1) several vague statements made in Italy and France as to the art of printing being known or practised or invented in Germany, statements which arose from the books and colophons published at Mainz; (2) one item of rumour in 1472 that Gutenberg invented it near that town; (3) two Mainz statements, of 1476 and 1492, and one Cologne statement, of 1478, that it was invented at Mainz; (4) three German statements, of 1492, 1494 and 1499, that Gutenberg had invented it; and (5) two Mainz statements, of 1504 and 1505, to the same effect. But it is to be particularly noticed that the statements (2, 4, 5), which speak distinctly of Gutenberg being the inventor, can be clearly traced to the St Victor Cathedral, that is, to Gutenberg himself and one of his relatives.
Seeing then how slender the basis is for the assertion that printing was invented by Gutenberg at Mainz, that even this Contradiction of Gutenberg's Claims. slender basis was not laid till fourteen years after the art had been fully established and proclaimed in that city, and that it may be traced to Gutenberg himself, we cannot be surprised to find it promptly contradicted, not in Holland, but in Germany itself.
This contradiction was made in 1499 (testimony xxiv.) in a Chronicle published at Cologne. To facilitate the understanding of this testimony it is divided above into eight sections. The first (taken from Hartmann Schedel's Chronicle, 1493), second, sixth, seventh and eighth are no doubt due to the compiler of the Chronicle, and must not be connected with the third, fourth and fifth, which, according to the compiler, are due to Ulrich Zell, a printer at Cologne, who had probably settled there about 1463, and had most likely learnt his art at Mainz, as he called himself “clericus moguntinus.” As Zell's testimony leaves to Gutenberg nothing but the honour of having perfected the art, various attempts have been made to explain away this account. As long as no typographically printed Donatus had been found that could be fitted into Zell's account it was argued that he meant a Donatus printed from wooden blocks; and this argument is brought forward even at the present time. But a practical printer like Zell must have been able to express himself to that effect if he had really meant to say so; and, as block-printing was not less practised in Germany than in Holland, we could hardly assume that blockbooks printed in Holland would have inspired the German inventor rather than the same books printed in Germany. That testimony xxxviii. speaks of a Donatus printed from wooden blocks maybe ascribed to the notion arising at that time (c. 1533) that block-printing had given rise to typography. It has also been remarked that unless we take Zell to refer to a Donatus xylographically printed in Holland, the passage in the Chronicle would be contradictory, as it says in its first and sixth section that the art of printing was found first of all at Mainz about 1440, by a Mainz citizen, Junker Johan Gudenburch, and then in its fourth that the art had already been found before that time in another place. But if the fourth section is read in accordance with its punctuation in the Chronicle itself, it says clearly that the art was found at Mainz, as aforesaid in the manner in which it is generally employed now, that is, more masterly, more artistic than in the Donatuses printed in Holland. It has further been asserted that Holland in the Chronicle means Flanders; but the Chronicle is usually correct in geographical matters, and is
- ↑ Venit (comes), the present not the perfect tense (has come).
