(1400-1468)
Hans Gensfleisch Gutenberg von Sorgeloch was a young patrician--born at
Mainz, a free and wealthy city on the banks of the Rhine, in the year
1400. His father, Friel Gensfleisch, married Else von Gutenberg, who
gave her name to her second son John.
It is probable that if Mainz, his country, had not been a free city,
this young gentleman would have been unable to conceive or to carry into
execution his invention. Despotism and superstition equally insist upon
silence; they would have stifled the universal and resistless echo which
genius was about to create for written words. Printing and liberty were
both to spring from the same soil and the same climate.
[Illustration: Hans Gutenberg.]
Mainz, Strasburg, Worms, and other municipal towns on the Rhine, then
governed themselves, under the suzerainty of the empire, as small
federal republics, like Florence, Genoa, Venice, and the other states of
Italy. The nobility warlike, the burgesses increasing in importance, and
the laboring population vacillating between these two classes, who
alternately oppressed and courted it, from time to time, here as
everywhere, fought for supremacy. Outbursts of civil war, excited by
vanity or interest, and in which the victory remained sometimes with the
patricians, sometimes with the burgesses, and at others with the
artisans, made them alternately victors, conquered, and proscribed. This
is the history of all cities, of all republics, and of all empires.
Mainz, was a miniature of Rome or Athens, only the proscribed party had
not the sea to cross to escape from their country; they went outside the
walls, and crossed the Rhine; those of Strasburg going to Mainz, and
those of Mainz to Strasburg, to wait until their party recovered power,
or until they were recalled by their fellow-citizens.
In these intestine struggles of Mainz, the young Gutenberg, himself a
gentleman, and naturally fighting for the cause most holy in a son's
eyes--that of his father--was defeated by the burgesses, and banished,
with all the knights of his family, from the territory of Mainz. His
mother and sisters alone remained there in possession of their property,
as innocent victims on whom the faults of the nobility should not be
visited. His first banishment was short, and peace was ratified by the
return of the refugees. A vain quarrel about precedence in the public
ceremonies on the occasion of the solemn entry of the Emperor Robert,
accompanied by the Archbishop Conrad, into Mainz, refreshed the
animosity of the two classes in 1420, and young Gutenberg, at the age of
nineteen, under went his second exile.
The free city of Frankfort now offered itself as a mediator between the
nobles and plebeians of Mainz, and procured their recall on condition of
the governing magistracy being equally shared between the high classes
and the burgesses. But Gutenberg, whether his valor in the civil war had
rendered him more obnoxious and more hostile to the burgesses; whether
his pride, fostered by the traditions of his race, could not submit
patiently to an equality with plebeians; or whether, more probably, ten
years of exile and study at Strasburg had already turned the bent of his
thoughts to a nobler subject than the vain honors of a free city,
refused to return to his country. His mother, who watched over her
son's interest at Mainz, petitioned the republic to allow him to receive
as a pension a small portion of the revenues of his confiscated
possessions. The republic replied that the young patrician's refusal to
return to his country was a declaration of war, and that the republic
did not pay its enemies. Gutenberg, persisting in his voluntary exile
and in his disdain, lived on the secret remittances of his mother.
But at Strasburg he already enjoyed so great a popularity for his
disposition and his acquirements, that one day, when the chief
magistrate of Mainz was passing the territory of Strasburg, he was
arrested by the friends of Gutenberg, shut up in a castle, and did not
recover his liberty until the city of Mainz had signed a treaty which
restored the exile his patrimony. Thus this youth, the great tribune of
the human mind, whose invention was destined to destroy forever the
prejudices of race, and to restore, in after-times, liberty and civil
equality to all the plebeians of the world, began his life, as yet
unrecognized, at the head of the patrician party of his country, in
these struggles between the privileged castes and the people. Fortune
seemed to delight in the contrast. But Gutenberg's wisdom, increasing
with his age, was afterward destined to reunite the people and nobility,
who looked on each other as enemies.
The restoration of his goods allowed young Gutenberg to satisfy his
literary, religious, and artistic tastes, by travelling from town to
town to study monuments, and visit men of all conditions celebrated for
their science, their art, or even their trade. The artisans of Germany
then held nearly the same rank as the artists. It was at the time when
the trades, scarcely known, were confused with the arts, and when the
most humble professions produced their earliest masterpieces, which, on
account of their novelty, were looked upon as prodigies. Gutenberg
travelled alone, on foot, carrying a knapsack containing books and
clothes, like a mere student visiting the schools, or a journeyman
looking for a master. He thus went through the Rhenish provinces, Italy,
Switzerland, Germany, and lastly, Holland, not without an object, like a
man who lets his imagination wander at the caprice of his footsteps, but
carrying everywhere with him a fixed idea, an unchanging will led by a
presentiment. This guiding star was the thought of spreading the word of
God and the Bible among a vaster number of souls.
Thus it was religion which, in this young wandering apostle, was seeking
the soil wherein to sow a single seed, of which the fruit hereafter was
to be a thousand various grains. It is the glory of printing that it was
given to the world by religion, not by industry. Religious enthusiasm
was alone worthy to give birth to the instrument of truth.
What mechanical processes Gutenberg may until then have revolved in his
mind, remains unknown. Whatever they were, chance effaced them all, and
brought him at once upon his great discovery. One day, at Haarlem, in
Holland, the verger of the cathedral, named Lawrence Koster, with whom
he had established friendly relations, showed him in the sacristy a
Latin grammar, curiously wrought in engraved letters on a wooden board,
for the instruction of the seminarists. Chance, that gratuitous teacher,
had produced this approach to printing.
The poor and youthful sacristan of Haarlem was in love. He used to walk
on holydays to the spring outside the town, and sit under the willows by
the canals, to indulge in his day-dreams. His heart full of the image of
his bride, he used to amuse himself, in true lover's fashion, by
engraving with his knife the initials of his mistress and himself,
interlaced, as an emblem of the union of their hearts and of their
interwoven destinies. But, instead of cutting these ciphers on the bark,
and leaving them to grow with the tree, like the mysterious ciphers so
often seen on the trees in the forests and by the brooks, he engraved
them on little blocks of willow stripped of their bark, and still
reeking with the moisture of their sap; and he used to carry them, as a
remembrance of his dreams and a pledge of affection, to his lady-love.
One day, having thus cut some letters on the green wood, probably with
more care and perfection than usual, he wrapped up his little work in a
piece of parchment, and brought it with him to Haarlem. On opening it
next day to look at his letters, he was astonished to see the cipher
perfectly reproduced in brown on the parchment by the relieved portion
of the letters, the sap having oozed out during the night and imprinted
its image on the envelope. This was a discovery. He engraved other
letters on a large platter, replaced the sap by a black liquid, and thus
obtained the first proof ever printed. But it would only print a single
page. The movable variety and endless combinations of characters
infinitely multiplied, to meet the vast requirements of literature, were
wanting. The invention of the poor sacristan would have covered the
surface of the earth with plates engraved or sculptured in relief, but
would not have been a substitute for a single case of movable type.
Nevertheless, the principle of the art was developed in the sacristy of
Haarlem, and we might hesitate whether to attribute the honor of it to
Koster or Gutenberg, if its invention had not been with one the mere
accidental discovery of love and chance, and, in the other, the
well-earned victory of patience and genius.
At the sight of this coarse plank, the lightning from heaven flashed
before the eyes of Gutenberg. He looked at the plank, and, in his
imagination, analyzed it, decomposed it, put it together again, changed
it, divided it, readjusted it, reversed it, smeared it with ink, placed
the parchment on it, and pressed it with a screw. The sacristan,
wondering at his long silence, was unwittingly present at this
development of an idea over which his visitor had brooded in vain for
the last ten years. When Gutenberg retired, he carried a new art with
him.
On the morrow, like a man who possesses a treasure, and knows neither
rest nor sleep until he has hidden it safely, Gutenberg left Haarlem,
hastened up the Rhine until he reached Strasburg, shut himself up in his
work-room, fashioned his own tools, tried, broke, planned, rejected,
returned to his plans, and again rejected them, only to return to them
again; and ended by secretly executing a fortunate proof upon parchment
with movable wooden types, bored through the side with a small hole,
strung together and kept close by a thread, like square beads on a
chaplet, each with a letter of the alphabet cut in relief on one
side--the first printer's alphabet, coarse, but wonderful--the first
company of twenty-four letters, which multiplied like the herds of the
patriarchs, until at last they covered the whole earth with written
characters, in which a new and immaterial element--human thought--became
incarnate.
Gutenberg, perceiving at the first glance the immense social and
industrial bearing of his invention, felt that his weak hand, short
life, and moderate property would be spent in vain on such a work. He
experienced two opposite wants--the necessity of associating with
himself persons to assist in meeting the expenses and in executing the
mechanical labor, and the necessity of concealing from his assistants
the secret and real object of their labors, for fear lest his invention
might be divulged and pirated, and the glory and merit of his discovery
taken from him. He cast his eyes on the nobility and rich gentry of his
acquaintance at Strasburg and Mainz. He probably met with rebuffs from
all quarters, on account of the prejudice then prevailing that
handicrafts were derogatory to a gentleman. He was, therefore, obliged
to sink his rank, become a workman, associate with artisans, and mix
with the people, in order to raise the people to the high level of
morality and intelligence.
Under the pretence of working together at _a new and marvellous craft_,
such as jewelry, clock-making, and grinding and setting precious stones,
he entered into a deed of partnership with two wealthy inhabitants of
Strasburg, Andrew Dritzchen and Hans Riffe, bailiff of Lichtenau; and
afterward with Faust, a goldsmith and banker of Mainz, whose name,
confounded with that of Faustus, the wondrous sorcerer of German fable,
the master of mystery, and the friend of the Evil One, caused the
invention of printing to be attributed to magic; and, lastly, with
Hulmann, whose brother had just established the first paper-mill at
Strasburg.
In order the more effectually to conceal from his partners the real
object of his pursuit, Gutenberg joined them in several artistic and
secondary enterprises. Continuing in secret his mechanical researches on
printing, he employed himself publicly in these other occupations. He
taught Dritzchen the art of cutting precious stones. He himself polished
Venetian glass for mirrors, or cut pieces of it into facets, setting
them in copper frames ornamented with wooden figurines representing
personages from history or fable, from the Bible or the Testament. These
articles, which found sale at the fair of Aix-la-Chapelle, kept up the
funds of the association, and assisted Gutenberg in the secret expenses
reserved for accomplishing and perfecting his design.
To conceal it the better also from the restless curiosity of the public,
who began to circulate a suspicion of witchcraft against him, Gutenberg
left the town, and established his workshop in the ruins of an old
deserted monastery, called the Convent of St. Arbogast. The solitude of
the place, only inhabited by the houseless poor of the suburbs, covered
his first attempts.
In a corner of one of the vast cloisters of the monastery, occupied by
his partners for their less secret labors, Gutenberg had reserved for
himself a cell, always closed with lock and bolt, and to which none but
himself ever had access. He was supposed to go there to draw the
designs, arabesques, and figurines for his jewelry and the frames of his
glasses; but he passed his days and sleepless nights there, wearing
himself out in the pursuit of his invention. There it was that he
engraved his movable types in wood, and projected casting them in metal,
and studied hard to find the means of inclosing them in _forms_, whether
of wood or of iron, to make the types into words, phrases, and lines,
and to leave spaces on the paper. There it was that he invented colored
mediums, oleaginous and yet drying, to reproduce these characters,
brushes and dabbers to spread the ink on the letters, boards to hold
them, and screws and weights to compress them. Months and years were
spent, as well as his own fortune and the funds of the firm, in these
persevering experiments, with alternate success and disappointment.
At length, having made a model of a press, which seemed to him to
combine all the requirements of printing, according to his ideas at that
time, he concealed it under his cloak, and walking to the town, went to
a skilful turner in wood and metal, named Conrad Saspach, who lived in
the Mercer's Lane, asking him to make the machine of full size. He
requested the workman to keep it secret, merely telling him that it was
a machine by the help of which he proposed to produce some masterpieces
of art and mechanism, of which the marvels should be known in due time.
The turner, taking the model in his hands, and turning it backward and
forward with the smile of contempt that a skilful artist usually puts on
when looking at a rough specimen, said, somewhat scornfully, "But it is
just simply a press that you are asking me for, Master Hans!"
"Yes," replied Gutenberg, with a grave and enthusiastic tone, "it is a
press, certainly, but a press from which shall soon flow in
inexhaustible streams the most abundant and most marvellous liquor that
has ever flowed to relieve the thirst of man! Through it God will spread
his Word. A spring of pure truth shall flow from it; like a new star, it
shall scatter the darkness of ignorance, and cause a light heretofore
unknown to shine among men." He retired. The turner, who understood not
these words, made the machine, and delivered it at the monastery of
Arbogast.
This was the first printing-press.
As soon as he was in possession of his press, Gutenberg began printing.
Little is known of the first works which he sent out; but the strongly
religious disposition of the inventor leaves no doubt concerning the
nature of the labors to which he devoted the first-fruits of his art.
They were, to a certainty, religious books. The art invented for the
sake of God, and by his inspiration, began with his worship. His later
publications at Mainz are a proof of it; the divine songs of the
Psalmist, and the celebrated Latin Bible, were the first works issued at
Mainz from the machine invented by Gutenberg, and applied to the use of
the most sacred powers of man, lyrical praise of his Maker, and
lamentation for the woes of earth. Under the hands of this pious and
unfortunate man, praise and prayer were the first voices of the press.
The press ought ever to be proud of it.
[Illustration: Gutenberg's Invention.]
But great tribulation awaited him after his triumph. We have seen that
the necessity of procuring funds obliged him to take partners. The
necessity that subsequently arose of getting assistance for the
multifarious labor of a great printing establishment obliged him to
confide his occupation, and even the secret of his process, to his
partners and to a number of workmen. His partners, tired of supplying
funds to an enterprise which, for want of perfection, was not then
remunerative, refused to persevere in the ungrateful occupation.
Gutenberg begged them not to abandon him at the very moment that fortune
and glory were within his grasp. They consented to make fresh advances,
but only on condition of sharing completely his secret, his profits, his
property, and his fame.
He sold his fame to procure success to his work. The name of Gutenberg
disappeared. The firm absorbed the inventor, who soon became a mere
workman in his own workshop. It was a parallel to the case of
Christopher Columbus brought back in irons on board his own vessel, by a
crew to whom he had opened a new world.
This was not all. The heirs of one of the partners brought an action
against him to contest his invention, his property, and his right of
carrying on the work. They compelled him to appear before the judges at
Strasburg, to make him submit to some more complete and more legal
spoliation than the voluntary abandonment he had himself acknowledged.
His perplexity before the court was extreme. To justify himself, it was
necessary to enter into all the technical details of his art, which he
did not as yet wish to make completely public, reserving to himself, at
least, the secret of his hopes. The judges, being inquisitive, pressed
him with insidious questions, the answers to which would have exposed
the secret of all his processes. He evaded them, preferring an adverse
decision to the publication of his art. To succeed in penetrating the
secret of the discovery which filled people's imaginations, the judges
summoned his most confidential workmen, and required them to give
evidence of what they knew. These men, simple-minded, yet faithful and
strongly attached to Gutenberg, refused to reveal anything. Their
master's secret was safer in their hearts than in the breasts of his
more grasping associates. None of the great mysteries of the art
transpired. Gutenberg, ruined, condemned, perhaps banished, retired
alone and in poverty to Mainz, his native place, to recommence his
labors and begin his life and fame anew.
He was still young, and the report of his lawsuit at Strasburg had made
his fame known all over Germany, but he returned a workman to a city
which he had quitted as a knight. Humiliation, poverty, and glory
contended with each other in his fate and in the behavior of his
fellow-citizens. Love alone recognized him for what he had been, and for
what he was one day to become.
On his return to Mainz, having been relieved from degradation and ruin
by the woman he loved, as Mohammed was by his first wife, Gutenberg gave
himself entirely up to his art, entered into partnership with Faust and
Schoeffer, Faust's son-in-law; established offices at Mainz, and
published, still under the name of the firm, Bibles and Psalters, of
remarkable perfection of type.
Schoeffer had for a long time carried on the business of a scrivener,
and a trade in manuscripts in Paris. His travels, and his intimacy with
the artists of that town, had made him acquainted with mechanical
processes for working in metals, which he adapted, on his return to
Mainz, to the art of printing. These new means enabled him to cast
movable leaden types in a copper matrix, with greater precision than
before, and thus to give great neatness to the letters. It was by this
new process that the Psalter, the first book bearing a date, was printed
in 1457. Soon afterward the Mainz Bible, recognized as a masterpiece of
art, was produced under the direction of Gutenberg, from types founded
by Peter Schoeffer's process.
The tendency of the new art, which began by cheapening sacred books
under the auspices of the Church alone, escaped, during the first years
of its existence, the notice of the Roman court, which saw an auxiliary
in what it afterward considered as an opponent.
"Among the number of blessings which we ought to praise God for having
vouchsafed during your pontificate," says a dedication in the time of
Paul II., "is this invention, which enables the poorest to procure
libraries at a low price. Is it not a great glory to your Holiness, that
volumes which used to cost _one hundred pieces of gold_ are now to be
bought for four, or even less, and that the fruits of genius, heretofore
the prey of the worms and buried in dust, begin under your reign to
arise from the dead, and to multiply profusely over all the earth?"
Meanwhile, Faust the banker, and Schoeffer the workman, Gutenberg's new
partners, were not long in giving way, like his former partner, one
Mentel or Metelin at Strasburg, to the temptation of absorbing by
degrees Gutenberg's glory, the most tempting of all possessions, because
of its immortality. Like many others, they hoped to deceive posterity,
if not their own contemporaries. After recognizing, in the Epistle
Dedicatory prefixed to the German translation of Livy, printed by Hans
Schoeffer, and addressed to the Emperor Maximilian, "that the art of
printing was invented at Mainz by that sublime mechanician Hans von
Gutenberg," they forgot this confession, and seven years later assumed
to themselves all the merit and honor of the discovery.
A short time afterward, the Emperor Maximilian, erecting the printers
and compositors into a species of intellectual priesthood, relieved them
by the nobility of their occupation from all degradation of rank. He
ennobled the art and the artists together; he authorized them to wear
robes embroidered with gold and silver, which nobles only had a right to
wear, and gave them for armorial bearings an eagle with his wings spread
over a globe, a symbol of the flight of written thoughts, and of its
conquest of the world.
But Gutenberg was no longer upon earth to enjoy the possession of that
intellectual world, religious and political, of which he had only had a
glimpse, like Moses, in the vision of his dream in the monastery of St.
Arbogast. Despoiled by his partners of his property and of his fame;
expelled again, and for the last time, from his country by poverty, his
only consolation being that he was followed by his wife, who remained
faithful through all his troubles; deprived by death of all his
children; advanced in years, without bread, and soon afterward, by his
wife's decease, a widower, he was received by the Elector of Nassau,
the generous Adolphus. The elector created him his counsellor of state
and chamberlain, in order to enjoy in an honorable familiarity the
conversation of this surpassing genius, who was afterward to hold
converse with all times and all places. This shelter afforded to
Gutenberg sheds everlasting lustre on Nassau and its prince. We meet in
history with instances where a generous hospitality has given happiness
and immortal fame to the most insignificant potentates and to the
smallest of states.
Gutenberg continued printing with his own hands, at Nassau, under the
eyes of his Mæcenas, the elector, during several years of peace and
quiet. He died at the age of sixty-eight, leaving his sister no
inheritance, but bequeathing to the world the empire of the human mind,
discovered and achieved by a workman.
"I bequeath," he says in his will, "to my sister all the books which I
printed at the monastery of St. Arbogast." The poor inventor's only
legacy to his surviving relative was the common property of almost all
inventors like himself--wasted youth, a persecuted life, a name
aspersed, toil, watchings, and the oblivion of his contemporaries.