Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/540

from France, named Nicol. Jenson (see xii.), discovered this art; but that is untrue, for there are those still alive who testify that books were printed at Venice before Nicol. Jenson came there and began to cut and make letters. (6) But the first inventor of printing was a citizen of Mainz, named Junker Johan Gudenburch. (7) From Mainz the art was introduced first of all into Cologne, then into Strassburg, and afterwards into Venice. (8) The origin and progress of the art were told to the writer verbally by Ulrich Zell of Hanau, still printer at Cologne (anno 1499), through whom the said art came to Cologne. (xxv.) In 1501 Jacob Wimpheling (see xxi.), who stated in his Oratio querulosa contra Invasores Sacerdotum, &c. (published at Delft, c. 1495) that chalcography had been invented at Mainz, says on p. 43 of his Germania (Strassburg, Joh, Prüss, 1501), that the invention was made at Strassburg by Johann Gutenberg of Strassburg, and that it was perfected at Mainz. (xxvi.) In 1503 Johann Schoeffer (the son of Peter Schoeffer and the grandson of Johann Fust) published an edition of Hermes Trismegistus, in which he represents himself as one of the most distinguished citizens of Mainz (nobili vrbe maguntina artis impressoriae inventrice illuminatriceque prima), descended from the most fortunate race who invented the art of printing. (xxvii.) In 1504 Ivo Wittig, a canon and the keeper of the seal of the St Victor Cathedral near Mainz (of which Gutenberg had been a lay member), erected in the house “Zum Gutenberg” a memorial stone and an epitaph (missing already in 1700) to Joh. Gutenberg of Mainz, “qui primus omnium litteras aere imprimendas invenit.” (xxviii.) In 1505, in the German translation of Livy published by Johann Schoeffer (see xxxii.) the dedication to the emperor Maximilian, probably written by Ivo Wittig (see xxvii.), speaks of Johan Güttenbergk as inventor of printing (1450) and Johan Faust and Peter Schoeffer as improvers and perpetrators of the art. This work was reprinted at least eight times (in 1514, 1523, 1529, 1530, 1533, 1551, 1553, 1557) with the same dedication; but in 1509 the Breviarium Moguntinum says that it was printed at the expense and labour of Johann Schoeffer, whose grandfather (i.e. Johann Fust) was the first inventor and author of the art of printing (see xxvi.). (xxix.) In 1505 Jacob Wimpheling, in his Epithoma Germanorum (Strassburg, 1505), asserts (on leaf xxxviii. b and xxxix. a) that in 1440 Johann Gutenberg of Strassburg invented there the art of printing. And in 1507, in his Catal. episcoporum Argent. (Strassburg, 1507), he says that the art was invented, though in an imperfect manner, by a certain Strassburger, who afterwards went to Mainz and joined others working and trying the same art, where it was, under the guidance of Johann Gensfleisch, perfected in the house “boni montis” (Gutenberg). This he repeated in 1515. (xxx.) About 1506-1511 Johannes Trithemius wrote his Chronikon of Spanheim, published at Frankfort in 1601, in which he says (p. 366), under the year 1450, that the art of printing books was discovered afresh (à novo) at Mainz by a certain citizen said to be Johan Gutenberg, who, after having spent all his property in accomplishing the new invention, perfected it by the advice and assistance of Johan Fust and others. The first propagator of the new art was, after the inventor, Peter Schoeffer. (xxxi.) In 1515 Johann Schoeffer published Joh. Trithemius's Compendium sive Breviarium historiae Francorum, and said in the colophon that the book was published at Mainz (the first inventress of the art of printing), by him, the grandson of the late Johann Fust, the first author of the said art, who finally from his own genius commenced to excogitate and to investigate the art in 1450, and in 1452 perfected it and commenced printing, assisted by many necessary inventions of Peter Schocffer von Gernsheim, his servant and adopted son. Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer kept this art secret, binding all their servants and domestics by oath never to reveal it; but in 1462 it was spread by the same domestics into divers countries. The same statements were repeated in the Breviar. eccles. Mindensis of 1516. (xxxii.) On the 9th of December 1518 the emperor Maximilian accorded to Johann Schoeffer the privilege of printing Livy (1518-1519), saying that “he has learnt and been advised on the faith of worthy testimonies that the ingenious invention of chalcography was effected by the printer's grandfather.” Erasmus, in his preface to this book, says that great praise is due to the inventors of the almost divine art of printing, the chief among whom is rumoured or said to be Joan Faust, the grandfather of Joan Scheffer; and Nicolaus Carbachius, in a final notice of the edition, speaks of “Joan Scheffer Chalcographus,” whose grandfather first invented and exercised this art in Mainz. (xxxiii.) In 1519 Joh. Thurmayer Aventinus (1474-1534) wrote that “in 1450 Joannes Faustus, a German, a citizen of Mainz, invented a new kind of writing, called chalcography, and completed it in two years; it was kept secret by him and Peter Schoeffer, his son-in-law, but divulged in Germany ten years afterwards by Faust's servant, Johannes Guttenberger, a Strasburger.” (xxxiv.) In a pedigree of Lourens Janssoen Coster of Haarlem and his descendants, preserved in the Haarlem Town Library, it is asserted that “he brought the first print into the world 1446.” It would seem that an attempt was made, at some time or other, to alter the date 1446 of this document into 1440, otherwise its genuineness is beyond doubt; in its present state it was probably first drawn up about 1559, but its first four divisions including the above statement were evidently copied from some earlier document, as they are all written by one hand, in Roman or Karoline minuscules, and, of course, this earlier document may be assumed to have existed long before 1502-1560, the period usually assigned to this pedigree, and to go back to the time of L. J. Coster himself. There is some doubt as to whether the year 1446 refers to Coster's bringing the first print into the world, or to the marriage of his daughter. In the latter case the “first print” must be earlier. (xxxv.) In 1520 Johan Schott, a printer at Strassburg and grandson of Johan Mentelin, the first printer of that town, published an edition of Ptolemy, and printed at the end the arms of his grandfather with the following inscription: “insigne Schottorum Familiae ab Friderico Rom. Imp. III. Joan. Mentelio primo Typographiae Inventori ac suis concessum: Anno Christi 1466.” Apart from the assertion that Mentelin was the inventor of printing, we may remark that the emperor Frederick III. raised Mentelin to the rank of a nobleman in 1466 and granted him new arms. (xxxvi.) In 1524 Johan Schoeffer speaks again (at the end of S. Prosperi libellus) of his maternal grandfather Joan “Faust” and his father Peter Schoeffer, citizens of Mainz, who first of all invented and practised metal printing. (xxxvii.) in 1531 Ivo Schoeffer, the son of Johan Schoeffer, speaks of his great grandfather Johan “Faust” having invented chalcography, and “Faust” continues for many years afterwards to be spoken of as the inventor, sometimes in connexion with Peter, once or twice even with Ivo Schoeffer. (xxxviii.) About 1533 the Neapolitan Mariangelo Accorso, who had resided at the court of Charles V., wrote on the first leaf of a vellum Donatus (in the possession of Aldus Manutius, jun.) that “Joh. Faust of Mainz first discovered the art of printing with metal types which afterwards he made of lead; his son Peter Schoeffer added much afterwards to polish the said art. This Donatus and Confessionalia were printed first of all in 1450. Faust derived the suggestion from a Donatus printed before in Holland from an engraved block.” This statement is found on p. 411 of the Biblioth. Apost. Vaticana of Angelo Roccha (Rome, 1591), who saw the leaf. Some consider its latter part to have been derived from the Cologne Chronicle (xxiv.) and it seems probable that it was a mixture of some of the above testimonies. (xxxix.) In 1536 Johan Schott (see xxxv.) published Historien Handt-Buchlein (Strassburg, 1536), in which on leaf b¹ and b² he says that “Hans Mentlin of Strassburg invented the art, which, through infidelity, was brought to Mainz.” On the strength of this and other statements (xxv., xxix., xxxv.) the bicentenary of the Strassburg invention was celebrated there in 1640. (xl.) In 1541 Joh. Arnold (Bergel or) Bergellanus, who had settled as press-reader at Mainz two years previously, published his Encomium chalcographiae (Mainz, in the St Victor Stift, Fr. Behem, 1541, 4to), in which the lawsuit between Fust and Gutenberg (i.) is alluded to for the first time. Bergel had read Tritheim's books (xxx.), in which the invention is ascribed to Johan Gutenberg with two coadjutors, Johann Faust and Peter Schoeffer, which he (Bergel) had heard confirmed in conversations with Mainz citizens; he had also seen some old tools prepared for the work by the originators which were still in existence. Gutenberg invented it in 1450. (xli.) About 1561 Jan van Zuren (born at Haarlem in 1517) and Dirk Volkerts Coornhert (born at Amsterdam in 1522) established a printing-office at Haarlem. Of the former it is alleged that he had compiled a work on the invention of printing, which is presumed to have been lost during the siege of Haarlem in 1573. This work was not publicly mentioned before 1628, when Peter Scriverius published his Laurecranz voor Laurens Coster, in which he says that he had only found the title, preface and introduction, in which Van Zuren contended that the first foundations of the art were laid at Haarlem, and that it afterwards accompanied a foreigner to Mainz. In this introduction he does not mention the name of the inventor, nor a date, but points in indefinite terms to the house of the inventor as still existing. (xlii.) In the same year (1561) Van Zuren and Coornhert published an edition of the Officia Ciceronis, in which the latter, in a dedication to the magistracy of Haarlem, refers to the rumour that the art of printing books was invented first of all at Haarlem, and was brought to Mainz by an unfaithful servant and much improved there. He adds that very old and dignified persons had often told him, not only the family of the inventor, but also his name and surname, and had explained the first crude way of printing, and pointed out to him the house of the first printer. (xliii.) In 1566 Luigi Guicciardini, a Florentine nobleman, who had visited the Netherlands and had resided many years at Antwerp, finished a description of the Netherlands (published in 1567), in which, alluding to Haarlem, he speaks of the invention there according to the assertions of the inhabitants, the evidence of some authors, and other remembrances; the inventor died before the perfection of his art; his servant went to Mainz, where he perfected the art, and hence the report that it was invented there. (xliv.) About 1568 (it is calculated) Hadrianus Junius wrote his Batavia, published at Leiden in 1588, with two prefaces, dated, the one from Leiden, the 6th of January 1575, the other from Delft ad annum salutis 1575. On p. 253 he says: (a) the opinion that the forms of the letters whereby books are printed were first discovered at Mainz is very inveterate, but old and eminent inhabitants of Haarlem had assured him that they had heard from their ancestors (b) that there lived at Haarlem, more than 128 years before, in a decent house then existing, near the market-place, opposite the