Gutenberg accordingly offered to pay the heirs of his late partner the stipulated sum; but they demanded of him an account of the capital invested by Andrew Dritzehen, which, as they alleged, had been absorbed in the speculation. They mentioned especially a certain account for lead, for which their brother had made himself responsible. Without denying this account, Gutenberg refused to satisfy their demands.
Numerous witnesses gave evidence, and their depositions for and against the object of the association show us a faithful picture of what must have been the inner life of four partners exhausting themselves and their money in efforts to realise a scheme the nature of which they were very careful to conceal, but from which they expected to derive the most splendid results.
We find them working by night; we hear them answering those who questioned them on the object of their work, that they were “mirror-makers” (spiegel-macher); we find them borrowing money, because they had in hand “something in which they could not invest too much money.” Andrew Dritzehen, in whose care the press was left, being dead, Gutenberg’s first object was to send to the deceased’s house a man he could trust, who was commissioned to unscrew the press, so that the pieces (or forms), which were fixed closely together by it, might become detached from each other, and then to place these forms in or on the press “in such a manner that no one might be able to understand what they were.” Gutenberg regrets that his servant did not bring him back all the forms, many of which “were not to be found.” Lastly, we find figuring among the witnesses a turner, a timber-merchant, and a goldsmith who declared that he had worked during three years for Gutenberg, and that he had gained more than 100 florins by preparing for him “the things belonging to printing” (das zu dem Trucken gehoret).
Trucken—printing! Thus the grand word was pronounced in the course of the lawsuit, but certainly without producing the least effect on the audience, who wondered what was this occult art which Gutenberg and his partners had carried on with so much trouble, and at such great expense. However, it is quite certain that, with the exception of the indiscretion, really very insignificant, of the goldsmith, Gutenberg’s secret remained undiscovered, for it was supposed it had to do with the polishing of stones and the manufacture of mirrors. The judge, being informed as to the good faith of Gutenberg, pronounced the offers he made to the plaintiffs satisfactory, decided against the heirs of Andrew Dritzehen, and the three other partners remained sole proprietors of their process, and continued to carry it out.
If we study with some attention the documents relating to this singular trial at Strasbourg, and if we also notice, that our word mirror is the translation of the German word spiegel and of the Latin word speculum, it is impossible not to recognise all the processes, all the implements made use of in printing, with the names they have not ceased to bear, and which were given to them as soon as they were invented; the forms, the screw (which is not the printing-press, for they printed in those days with the frotton, or rubber, but the frame in which the types were pressed), the lead, the work, the art, &c. We see Gutenberg accompanied by a turner who made the screw for the press, the timber merchant who had supplied the planks of box or of pear wood, the goldsmith who had engraved or cast the type. Then we ascertain that these “mirrors,” in the preparation of which the partners were occupied, and which were to be sold at the pilgrimage of Aix-la-Chapelle, were no other than the future copies of the “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis,” an imitation more or less perfect of the famous book of illustrations of which Holland had already published three or four editions, in Latin and in Dutch.
We know, on the other hand, that these “Mirrors” or “Specula” were, in the earliest days of printing, so much in request, that in every place the first printers rivalled each other in executing and publishing different editions of the book with illustrations. Here, there was the reprint of the “Speculum,” abridged by L. Coster; there, the “Speculum” of Gutenberg, taken entirely from manuscripts; now it was the “Speculum Vitæ Humanæ,” by Roderick, Bishop of Zamora; then the “Speculum Conscienciæ,” of Arnold Gheyloven; then the “Speculum Sacerdotum,” or again, the voluminous “Speculum” of Vincent de Beauvais, &c.
It cannot now any longer be assumed that Gutenberg really made mirrors or looking-glasses at Strasbourg, and that those pieces “laid in a press,” those “forms which came to pieces,” that lead sold or wrought by a goldsmith, were, as they wished it to be supposed, only intended to be used “for printing ornaments on the frames of looking-glasses!”
Fig. 394.—Interior of a Printing-office in the Sixteenth Century, by J. Amman.
Would it not have been surprising that the pilgrims who were to visit Aix-la-Chapelle on the occasion of the grand jubilee of 1440, should be so anxious to buy ornamented mirrors? As to the art “of polishing stones,” which Gutenberg had taught at first to Andrew Dritzehen, who derived from it “so much profit,” having anything to do with printing was, no doubt, also questionable; but we have not been able to solve the enigma, and wait to clear up the difficulty till a new incunable (incunabula, “a cradle,” the word is applied to the first editions ever printed) is discovered, the work of some Peter (πἑτρος “a stone”) or other; as, for example, the Latin sermons of Hermann de Petra on the Lord’s Prayer; for Gutenberg, when speaking of polishing stones, might have enigmatically designated a book he was printing; just as his partner, in answer to the judge, after having raised his hand on high and sworn to give true evidence, could call himself a maker of mirrors, without telling a falsehood, without committing perjury. The secret of printing was to be religiously kept by those who knew it.