Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/476

466 The description of printing here given is singularly exact. It is not surprising that the existence of the new art was then known in Paris, for the colophon to the Psalter of 1457 had announced the masterly invention; but it is strange that this document specified its characteristic features—the formen, or the matrices and type-mould, the types, punches and engraving. We see that the secret was revealed; that Frenchmen in 1458 had a correct idea of the vital principle of printing, and that all they required was a knowledge of its manipulations.

Eager to prevent the threatened rivalry of Jenson, Fust appeared in Paris, in 1462, with copies of the Bible, while Jenson was ineffectually soliciting the new king to aid him. So far from being persecuted in Paris, Fust was received with high consideration, not only by the king, but by the leading men of the city. He was encouraged to establish in Paris a store for the sale of his books, and to repeat his visit.

In 1465, Schœffer printed the Decretals of Boniface , a folio of 141 leaves, each page containing a text in large types, surrounded by notes in small types. Red letters and lines are introduced, but there are no engravings, and the presswork is in no point better than that of the Bible of 1462. The colophon exhibits an unscrupulous appropriation of the