by Gertrude Burford Rawlings
New York D.Appleton and Company 1901
closely modelled on the form of the handwriting used at that time for Bibles and kindred works. It is in
two volumes, and each page, excepting a few at the beginning, has two columns of forty-two lines, and
each is provided with rubrics, inserted by hand, while the small initials of the sentences have a touch of
red, also put in by hand. Some copies are of vellum, others of paper. But henceforward the use of vellum
declines.
Gutenberg and Fust. Mr. Winter Jones has conjectured that
the metal types used in early printing were cut by the
goldsmiths, and that Fust's skill, as well as his money, were
pressed into Gutenberg's service. But if, as some have
thought, Fust provided money only, while Gutenberg was the
working partner, then Fust would hardly have been concerned
in its actual production until 1455, when he and Gutenberg
separated. Even then-supposing the book to have been still
unfinished it is quite possible that Schoeffer did the work. But
no one is able to decide the exact parts played by those three
associated and most noted printers of Mentz; conjecture alone
can allot them.
Gutenberg returned to Mentz in 1456, and made a fresh start,
aided financially by Dr. Conrad Homery. Here again we are
confronted with a want of direct evidence, and can point to no
books as certainly being the work of Gutenberg. But there are
good reasons for believing that under this new arrangement
he printed the Catholicon, or Latin grammar and dictionary, of
John of Genoa; the Tractatus racionis et conscientiæ of
Matthæus de Cracovia; Summa de articulis fidei of Aquinas;
and an Indulgence of 1461. There is a colophon to the
Catholicon which may possibly have been written by
Gutenberg, which runs as follows :
often reveals to babes what He hides from the wise, this renowned book, the Catholicon, was printed
and perfected in the year of the Incarnation 1460, in the beloved city of Mentz (which belongs to the
illustrious German nation, whom God has consented to prefer and to raise with such an exalted light of
the mind and free grace, above the other nations of the earth), not by means of reed, stile, or pen, but
by the admirable proportion, harmony, and connection of the punches and types." A metrical doxology
follows.
A few other and smaller works have also been believed to have been executed by Gutenberg at this time,
but with no certainty. In 1465 Gutenberg was made one of the gentlemen of the court to Adolph II.,
Count of Nassau and Archbishop of Mentz, and presumably abandoned his printing on acceding to this
dignity. In 1467 or 1468 Gutenberg died, and thus ends the meagre list of facts which we have
concerning the life and career of the first printer.
To nearly every question which we might wish to ask about Gutenberg and his work, one of two answers
has to be given" It is not known," or "Perhaps." He does not speak for himself, and none of his personal
acquaintance, or his family, if he had any, speak for him. We have no reason to believe that his work
brought him any particular honour, and certainly it brought him no wealth. It has been suggested,
however, that the post offered to him by the Archbishop was in recognition of his invention, since there
is no other reason apparent why the dignity was conferred. But we may well conclude this account of
Gutenberg with De Vinne's words, that" there is no other instance in modern history, excepting,
possibly, Shakespeare, of a man who did so much and said so little about it.
leaving a son to succeed him in the partnership with
Schoeffer, and Schoeffer died about 1502. Of his three
sons (all printers), the eldest, Johann, continued to
work at Mentz until about 1533.
The most notable books issued by Fust and Schoeffer
were the Psalter of 1457, and the Latin Bible of 1462.
The Bible of 1462 is the first Bible with a date. The
Psalter of 1457 is famous as being the first printed
Psalter, the first printed book with a date, the first
example of printing in colours, the first book with a
printed colophon, and the first printed work containing
musical notes, though these last are not printed but
inserted by hand. The colour printing is shown by the
red and blue initials, but by what process they were
executed has been the subject of much discussion.
They are generally supposed to have been added after
affected by the early printers, and Mr. Pollard offers the following as a rough rendering.
"The present book of Psalms, adorned with beauty of capitals, and sufficiently marked out with rubrics,
has been thus fashioned by an ingenious invention of printing and stamping, and to the worship of God
diligently brought to completion by Johann Fust, a citizen of Mentz, and Peter Schoffer of Gernsheim, in
the year of our Lord, 1457, on the Vigil of the Feast of the Assumption.
These two printers also produced, in 1465, an edition of the De Officiis of Cicero, which shares with the
Lactantius, printed in the same year at Subiaco, near Rome by Sweynheim and Pannartz, the honour of
exhibiting to the world the first Greek types, and with the same printers' Cicero De Oratore, that of being
the first printed Latin classic, unless an undated De Officiis, printed at Cologne by Ulrich Zel about this
time, is the real " first."