was engaged by the Brotherhood of the Life- in-Common at Weidenbach, near that city, to assist them with his new art of printing in their pious task of making books.[1] His name appears for the first time in a book dated 1466, which date may be accepted as indicative of the time when he left the monastery and began to print on his own account in the city.
At the close of the fifteenth century, twenty-two printing offices had been established at Cologne. Among them was that of Arnold Ter Hoorne, who, despite his occasional bad presswork, deserves special notice as one of the first printers who made use of Arabic figures.
Nurmeberg. Henry Keffer, who appeared as a witness for Gutenberg in the suit at law in 1455, is supposed to have established himself as a printer at Nuremberg about 1469. His name appears, for the first time, in the imprint of a book dated 1473, from which it seems that he was hired by John Sensenschmidt, a wealthy man of that city,[2] who aspired to be a publisher. In 1473, Anthony Koburger began to print at Nuremberg. In a few years he acquired great reputation as printer and publisher: he had twenty-four presses at Nuremberg and offices at Basle and at Lyons. Lichtenberger says that he printed twelve editions of the Bible in Latin and one in German. That he merited his honors is implied by the testimony of Jodocus Badius, his rival at Paris, who frankly said he was an honest merchant and the prince of printers. The success of Koburger did not materially interfere with the
- ↑ The Brotherhood were forbidden by the vows they had taken to ask for alms or accept gifts, and were required to live by the labor of their hands. They devoted themselves to the duties of teaching school and copying books. At Weidenbach they were remarkably successful. They built a church in 1490 with the money they had made from the sale of manuscript and printed books. Madden says that the monastery of Weidenbach was not only a publishing house, but a prominent school of typography, and that there are reasons for believing that it gave instruction to Caxton, Jenson, Mansion and other eminent printers.
- ↑ This John Sensenschmidt subsequently went to Bamberg, and in 1481 there published the Bamberg Missal, with a text in Pointed Gothic types of five-line pica body, probably the largest text types ever used in a book. It was admirably printed and rubricated.
