The lawsuit dragged along, and finally ended in Gutenberg’s favor. The firm was ordered to pay Dritzhn’s brothers the fifteen florins, and nothing more. But the type were destroyed, and the partners were afraid to make new ones, lest the suspicious public should spy upon them and learn their secret. When the term of the contract between the partners came to an end it was not renewed. Each of the firm went his own way, and John Gutenberg opened his lapidary’s shop again and tried to build up the trade he had lost.
His wife was still Gutenberg’s chief encouragement. She was certain that some day he would win success, and often in the evening she would urge him not to despair of his invention, but to wait till the time should be ripe for him to go on with it again. As a matter of fact it was impossible for him to give it up. Before long he was cutting stucke again in his spare hours, and then trying his hand at printing single pages.
He felt however that it would be impossible for him to resume his presswork in Strasburg. There was too much prejudice against his invention there. So he decided to go back to his home town of Mainz, where many of his family were living. Anna agreed with this decision, and so they closed their shop, sold their goods, and journeyed to his brother’s home. There one day his brother introduced him to a rich goldsmith named Faust, and this man said he understood that Gutenberg had invented a new way of making books. John admitted this, and told him some details of his process.
The goldsmith was most enthusiastic, and suggested that he might be able to help the inventor with money. Gutenberg said he should need two or three thousand florins. “I will give it to thee,” answered Faust, “if thou canst convince me that it will pay better than goldsmithing.”
Then the printer confided all his secrets to Faust, and the latter considered them with great care. At last he was satisfied, and told Gutenberg that he would enter into partnership with him. “But where shall we start the work?” he added. “Secrecy is absolutely necessary. We must live in the house in which we work.”
“I had thought of the Zum Jungen,” answered Gutenberg, naming an old house that overlooked the Rhine.
“The very place,” agreed Faust. “It is almost a palace in size, and will give us ample room; it is in the city, and yet out of its bustle. It is vacant now, and I will rent it at once. When canst thou move there?”
“At once,” said Gutenberg, more pleased than he dared show.
So the printer and his good wife moved to the Zum Jungen, which was more like a castle than a tradesman’s dwelling-house. Its windows looked over the broad, beautiful river to the wooded shores beyond. Faust advanced Gutenberg the sum of 2,020 florins, taking a mortgage on his printing materials as security. Then Faust moved his family and servants to the old house, and the firm started work. Hanau, the valet of Gutenberg’s father, and a young scholar named Martin Duttlinger, joined them at the outset.
Two well-lighted rooms on the second floor, so placed as to be inaccessible to visitors, were chosen for the workshops. Here the four worked from early morning until nearly midnight, cutting out new sets of type and preparing them for the presswork. They began by printing a new manual of grammar, an “Absies,” or alphabetical table, and the “Doctrinale.” All three of these it was thought would be of use to all who could read.