Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/485

Rh There are many inaccuracies in this statement Gutenberg and Fust are represented as foolishly squandering money in vain efforts to invent xylography, a method of printing then in common use in many cities of Germany, Italy and Holland. The Catholicon, which is mentioned as one of the productions of block-printing, was printed from metal types in 1460. In the beginning, Gutenberg is acknowledged as the inventor of printing, yet, a few lines further, we are told that Fust was the first inventor. And it seems that Gutenberg could do nothing with his invention until helped by the advice, as well as the money, of John Fust. After the improved invention, Gutenberg and Fust fell in hopeless difficulties, having spent four thousand florins before they had completed sixty pages of the Bible. From these difficulties they were extricated by Peter Schœffer, "son-in-law of the first inventor," who invented a more easy method of making types, and who gave the art its present perfection, and without whose aid the earlier inventions would have been of little value. The intention of the writer is plain: Gutenberg, Fust and Schœffer may be regarded as co-inventors, but Schœffer did the most effective service.

It is a curious fact that this paper, which has been so often quoted as evidence in favor of Schœffer's invention of matrices,