Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/542

HISTORY]

In 1468 we enter on a new phase in the history of the invention. Even if we set aside testimony viii. as being merely local, testimony ix. (1468) speaks of the art of printing as having arisen in Germany. This testimony, however, does not come from Germany, nor from Mainz, but from Italy, and is supposed to have been inspired by the two German printers who had established a printing-office at Subiaco in 1465, and in 1467 at Rome, and who most likely learned their craft at Mainz.

Seeing then how slender the basis is for the assertion that printing was invented by Gutenberg at Mainz, that even this

slender basis was not laid till fourteen years after the art had been fully established and proclaimed in that city, and that it may be traced to Gutenberg himself, we cannot be surprised to find it promptly contradicted, not in Holland, but in Germany itself.