Johann or Hans Gutenberg was born at Mentz in or about the year 1400. His father's name was Gensfleisch, but he is always known by his mother's maiden name of Gutenberg or Gutemberg. It was customary in Germany at that time for a son to assume his mother's name if it happened that she had no other kinsman to carry it on. Of Gutenberg's early life, of his education or profession, we know nothing. But we know that his family, with many of their fellow-citizens, left Mentz when Gutenberg was about twenty years of age, on account of the disturbed state of the city. They probably went to Strasburg, but this is uncertain. In 1430 Gutenberg's name appears among others in an It is curious that nearly all the recorded information concerning Gutenberg is in connection either with lawsuits or with the raising of money. From the contracts for borrowing or repaying money into which he entered, we gather that he was always hard pressed, and that his invention ran away with a good deal of gold and paid back none. Gutenberg cast his bread on the waters, and it is we who have found it. The first known event of his life which directly concerns our subject is a lawsuit brought against him by Georg Dritzehn. Mr Hessels implies, though he does not actually state, that he suspects the authenticity of the records of this trial. But no proof of their falsity can be adduced, and the integrity of the documents otherwise remains unquestioned. They cannot now, however, be subjected to further examination, for they were burnt in 1870 at the time of the siege of Strasburg. The action in question was brought against Gutenberg in 1439 by Georg Dritzehn, the brother of one Andres Dritzehn, deceased, for the restitution of certain rights which he considered due to himself as his brother's heir. From the testimony of the witnesses as set down in the records of the trial, we gather that Again, Lorentz Beildeck testified that after Andres Dritzehn's death, Gutenberg sent him to Claus, Andres' brother, to tell him “that he should not show to anyone the press which he had under his care,” but that “he should take great care and go to the press and open this by means of two little buttons whereby the pieces would fall asunder. He should, thereupon, put those pieces in or on the press, after which nobody could see or comprehend anything.” Besides this, Hans Niger von Bischoviszheim said that Andres Dritzehn applied to him for a loan, and when witness asked him his occupation, answered that he was a maker of looking-glasses. Later on, a pilgrimage “to Aix-la-Chapelle about the looking-glasses” is mentioned. By these records, from Mr Hessels' translation of which the above quotations are taken, two things at least are made clear. First, that Gutenberg was in possession of the knowledge of an art unknown to his companions, which he was desirous of keeping to himself, and which those not in the secret wished to learn; and It is hardly to be doubted that the researches privately conducted in the deserted convent of St Arbogastus, where Gutenberg dwelt, concerned the great invention usually linked with his name. Were this probability an absolute certainty, then Strasburg might successfully dispute with Mentz the title of birthplace of the art of printing. But to what stage Gutenberg carried his labours in the old convent, or how far he proceeded towards the goal of his ambition, is not known, though it has been conjectured that possibly he and those in his confidence got as far as the making of matrices for types, and that perhaps even the types used for the earliest extant specimens of type-printing were cast there, although not used until Gutenberg had returned to Mentz. On the other hand, there are many who think that matrices and punches are due to When Gutenberg left Strasburg for Mentz is not known, but he was in the latter city in 1448, as is testified by a deed relating to a loan which he had raised. His constant pecuniary difficulties resulted in his entering into partnership, in 1450, with the goldsmith Johann Fust, or Faust, a rich burgher of Mentz, who contributed large loans towards the working expenses, and was evidently to share in the profits of the press. Fust or Faust, the printer of Mentz, has sometimes been identified with the Faust of German legend. The dealings in the black art related of the one have also been ascribed to the other by various story-tellers, some of whom say that in Paris Faust the printer narrowly escaped being burnt as a wizard for selling books which looked like manuscripts, and yet were not manuscripts. The first printed letters, it should be observed, were exactly copied from the manuscript letters then in vogue. The first really definite recorded event in the history of Gutenberg's printing was a lawsuit brought against him by Fust, in 1455, when Gutenberg had to give an account of the receipts and expenditure relating to his work, and to hand over to Fust all his apparatus in discharge of his debt. The partnership was of course dissolved, Gutenberg left Mentz, and Fust continued the printing assisted by Peter Schoeffer. Schoeffer was a servant of Fust's, who had further associated himself with the establishment by marrying Fust's daughter, and to him some attribute The earliest extant specimens of printing from types, however, are assigned to the year 1454. These are some Letters of Indulgence issued by Pope NicholasV. to the supporters of the King of Cyprus in his war with the Turks. They consist of single sheets of vellum, printed on one side only, and measuring c. 11 x 7 inches. They fall into two classes, of each of which there were various issues; that is to say, (1) those containing thirty lines, and (2) those containing thirty-one lines. The thirty-line Indulgence is printed partly in the type used for the Mazarin Bible. The thirty-one-line Indulgence is partly printed in type which is the same as that used for books printed by Albrecht Pfister at Bamberg, and for TYPE OF THE MENTZ INDULGENCE (30-line, exact size). Those who assign the thirty-line specimen to Schoeffer consider the thirty-one-line specimen to be Gutenberg's work. “And though we have no proof of this,” says Mr E. Gordon Duff, who holds this view, “or indeed of Gutenberg's having printed any book at all, there is a strong weight of circumstantial evidence in his favour.” It may be taken for granted, then, although proof is wanting, that Gutenberg printed at least one of these Indulgences, and perhaps both. In any case, these are the first productions of the printing-press to which a definite date can be assigned. Some of them have a printed date, and in other copies the date has been inserted in manuscript. The earliest specimens of each class belong to the year 1454. The next production of the Mentz press, as is generally believed, is the beautiful volume known as the Gutenberg Bible, or the Mazarin Bible, because it was a copy in the library of Cardinal Mazarin which first attracted attention and led bibliographers to enquire into its history. It illustrates a most remarkable fact—that is, the extraordinary degree of perfection to which the art of printing attained all but simultaneously It is believed by competent authorities that this and all very early printed books were printed one page at a time, owing to an inadequate supply of type, a process exceedingly slow and productive of numerous small variations in the text. The work of printing the Mazarin Bible was in all probability interrupted to allow of the execution of the more immediately needed Letters of Indulgence, in certain parts of which, as we have said, some of the types used in the Mazarin Bible are employed. We must not omit to mention here another Bible issued from Mentz about this time. It has thirty-six lines to a column, and is therefore known as the thirty-six line Bible, in distinction PAGE FROM THE MAZARIN BIBLE (reduced). The Mazarin Bible is in Latin, and printed in the characters known as Gothic, or black letter. These were 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 TYPE OF THE MAZARIN BIBLE (exact size). The Mazarin Bible is usually considered to be the joint work of 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:— 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 AdolphII., 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 Fust, the former partner of Gutenberg, died in 1466, 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.[2] 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 the rest of the page had been printed, by means of a stamp. The colophon is written in the curious Latin affected by the early printers, and Mr Pollard offers the following as a rough rendering:— 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.” |