APPENDIX A.
The following account of the invention of printing is given by an ancient German chronicler of the name of Trithemius, who appears to have personally known one of the three persons who clearly seem to have the best title to be called the inventors of printing.
"At this time, in the city of Mentz on the Rhine in Germany, and not in Italy, as some have erroneously written, that wonderful and then unheard-of art of printing and characterizing books was invented and devised by John Guttenberger, a citizen of Mentz, who, having expended almost the whole of his property in the invention of this art, and on account of the difficulties which he experienced on all sides, was about to abandon it altogether; when, by the advice, and through the means, of John Fust [or Faust], likewise a citizen of Mentz, he succeeded in bringing it to perfection. At first they formed [engraved] the characters or letters in written order on blocks of wood, and in this manner they printed the vocabulary called a 'Catholicon.' But with these forms [blocks] they could print nothing else, because the characters could not be transposed in these tablets, but were engraved thereon, as we have said. To this invention succeeded a more subtle one, for they found out the means of cutting the forms of all the letters of the alphabet, which they called matrices, from which again they cast characters of copper or tin of sufficient hardness to resist the necessary pressure, which they had before engraved by hand. And truly, as I learned thirty years since from Peter Opilio (Schoeffer) de Gernsheim, citizen of Mentz, who was the son-in-law of the first inventor of this art, great difficulties were experienced after the first invention of this art of printing, for in printing the Bible, before they had completed the third quaternion (or gathering of four sheets), 4000 florins were expended. This Peter Schoeffer, whom we have above mentioned, first servant and afterwards son-in-law to the first inventor, John Fust, as we have said, an ingenious and sagacious man, discovered the more easy method of casting the types, and thus the art was reduced to the complete state in which it now is. These three kept this method of printing secret for some time, until it was divulged by some of their workmen, without whose aid this art could not have been exercised; it was first developed at Strasburg, and soon became known to other nations. And thus much of the admirable and subtle art of printing may suffice—the first inventors were citizens of Mentz. These three first inventors of Printing, (videlicet) John Guttenberger, John Fust, and Peter Schoeffer, his son-in-law, lived at Mentz, in the house called Zum Jungen, which has ever since been called the Printing-office."
Guttenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer.
The invention of Schoeffer, which, whatever might have been its first mechanical imperfections, undoubtedly completed the principle of printing, is more particularly described in an early document, which is given in several learned works on typography, as proceeding from a relation of Fust. It is as follows:—"Peter Schoeffer, of Gernsheim, perceiving his master Fust's design, and being himself ardently desirous to improve the art, found out (by the good providence of God) the method of cutting (incidendi) the characters in a matrix, that the letters might each be singly cast, instead of being cut. He privately cut matrices for the whole alphabet; and when he showed his master the letters cast from these matrices, Fust was so pleased with the contrivance, that he promised Peter to give him his only daughter Christina in marriage; a promise which he soon after performed. But there were as many difficulties at first with these letters, as there had been before with wooden ones; the metal being too soft to support the force of the impression: but this defect was soon remedied by mixing the metal with a substance which sufficiently hardened it." John Schoeffer, the son of Peter, who was also a printer, confirms this account, adding, "Fust and Schoeffer concealed this new improvement by administering an oath of secrecy to all whom they intrusted, till the year 1462, when, by the dispersion of their servants into different countries, at the sacking of Mentz by the Archbishop Adolphus, the invention was publicly divulged."