Schoeffer admitted to the Firm.--A Grand Project.--How a Bible was
borrowed.--The Early Press.--Processes in Bookmaking.--Ingenuity
of Peter Schoeffer.--Industry of the Firm.--Ink.--Cast Type.--
Three Ingenious Men.--Letter-founding.--Faust compliments
Peter.--The First Printed Page of the Bible.--A Memorable Year.
We now view the first printing firm industriously cutting type from
the metal introduced by Peter Schoeffer, who is one of the partners.
Gutenberg, having fully tested it, found with joy that it was the
long-sought composition. It was hard enough to bear the necessary
pressure, and yet did not perforate the paper or vellum in printing.
“This is most opportune to our need,” said he to Peter; “we can now
begin to set type for the Bible. The lead _stucke_ must be melted into
the new mixture; you shall have charge of it, taking care to reserve
some of the best letters for models. We must keep in mind that the care
with which the letters are carved will determine the appearance of the
book. By lavishing time, ingenuity, and money on the Bible, the monks
have produced some elaborate specimens. I see no reason why we may not
rival them if we try.”
“Of all books the Bible should be in the highest style of our art,”
remarked Schoeffer.
“True, it should be,” replied Gutenberg; “and as you have cultivated
yourself in penmanship, I wish you to instruct the firm in
type-cutting. I have thought of a plan by which we can have uniform and
elegant letters. It is that you write them on the ends of the metal
strips, and let others carve the type from your pattern. This will
insure us one style of handwriting throughout the Bible; ever keeping
in mind that it is our aim to produce the most beautiful book the world
has ever seen,--for it is fitting that this book, of all others, should
be issued in the most excellent manner.”
“But,” observed Peter, “how can we excel the monks, when one man spends
a life-time on writing out and embellishing a Bible, and we can only
devote a few years to it? For instance, how can we ever bring our Bible
to compare with the Silver Book in the care of Father Melchoir, the
letters of which are mostly of silver, and the illustrations of gold? I
had access to the Royal Library of France, in the Louvre. There I saw
a copy of the Evangelists, written in liquid gold! I fear we shall
fail in magnificence, and give as great a contrast compared with these
monks, as our plain printing rooms form with that library, the floor of
which is paved with marble, the walls decorated with glass and ivory,
and the shelves and desks are of the costliest wood.”
“I shall not attempt to rival the monks in adorning my Bibles with gold
and silver,” said Gutenberg; “if the letters are faultless, and the
printing clear, we shall outvie them, and I am persuaded that we can
effect this. It would be idle for us to print with gold, even if we had
the abundance to warrant it. The monks are wealthy, and only lavish it
on a single copy, once in many years; while if we issue one Bible, we
shall imprint more than a hundred!”
“Aye, indeed!” exclaimed Peter Schoeffer, “What a magnificent thought!
Truly we live in a wonderful age, when six men can make a hundred
Bibles in six years!”
(But what would you say, Peter, could you witness the lightning-feats
of the steam-presses of this day, dashing off a thousand copies of the
sacred volume in one day?)
“And moreover,” replied Gutenberg, “when we have disposed of one
hundred copies, we can issue as many more in a shorter time.”
“That is most cheering,” returned Schoeffer, “and I will at once
engage in my department of the work.”
The printing of the Bible was now the great enterprise of the firm,
smaller works being issued by way of preparation. While Peter Schoeffer
superintended type-cutting, and the office work went on as usual, there
were long and earnest consultations as to the best course to pursue
in obtaining a Bible for a copy. If Gutenberg or Faust bargained for
one with the Abbot of a monastery, inquiries would be made which they
wished not to answer.
“If I had the money to deposit for a Bible,” said Martin Duttlinger, “I
could easily obtain one.”
“And the money we expect to furnish, of course,” said Faust. “No one
can borrow so valuable a piece of property as a Bible, without the same
as buying it.”
It was accordingly arranged that Martin Duttlinger, who was the most
trusty of their workmen, should be charged with the mission of buying
a Bible of Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim, who was known to have books
for sale; and Martin was accordingly fitted off. After his departure,
affairs went on with the firm much as usual, save that they felt the
impulse which the resolve of engaging in the noblest enterprise on
earth could not fail to give; and who can doubt that the smile of God’s
countenance rested on them, lightening their toil?
[Illustration: ANCIENT PRESS.]
Gutenberg and Faust advised much together respecting the improved
printing machine they were adjusting, and Schoeffer made rapid
improvement in his particular branch of the art.
Gutenberg’s press was very simple in construction,--a board acted on
by a screw, like a cheese-press. On this board the type was placed
inclosed in a frame, then inked; the paper was then laid over them,
and the screw turned by a lever with the hand. In constructing this
press, he had two upright posts of great strength, seven feet and a
half high, placed four feet apart, and fastened together at the top
and bottom by two stout crosspieces. In this frame an iron screw was
made to work, by means of two parallel additional crosspieces, about
a foot and a half apart, connecting the perpendicular posts. From
about the middle of each of these upright posts, three feet from the
floor, a slide projected, called a rib; these posts were parallel to
each other, and firmly fitted, to bear a great weight. But these two
points of the press,--the _screw_ and the _slide_,--let us see of what
use they were. A table was made to run in under the frame and out, the
slide supporting it in place of legs. The screw worked in a box, called
a hose, by means of a bar or lever inserted in it; the toe, or lower
end of the screw, working in a sort of cup fixed upon a large block
of dense wood, having the face planed smooth, and called the platen.
By turning down the bar, the screw forced down the platen, which was
fastened to it, just as far as it descended; when the screw was raised,
the platen was also raised.
The frame or chase which contained the type being fixed upon the table,
it was made to slide backwards and forwards as was needed. For example,
when the type was ready to be pressed, having been previously inked,
and the paper laid upon it, the workman slid it under the platen; and
after the screw was turned down, and the platen had pressed it, or the
printing was done, he slid it out.
The inking balls were constructed of a variety of things, and at length
the printers used those which were made of sheep’s felt.
A sheet of paper being placed upon the type, the form was slid directly
under the platen; and this being pressed down by a handle turning the
screw, the paper was printed.
This press served very well then, and even almost to our own day; a
similar one is sometimes to be seen now, where common rough printing is
required.
The press-work, being very toilsome, was done by turns, one man plying
it a certain number of hours, then another taking his place. The
Alphabet, with the “Lord’s Prayer,” the “Address to the Virgin Mary,”
a “Dictionary,” and a “Donatus,” were the first works printed with the
improved press, and separate types.
Each of these first printers was eminently practical. Had they been
otherwise, never could so great a work have been executed. It is now
necessary to employ as many as twelve trades to publish a Bible. These
are type-founders, printers’ joiners, iron-founders, paper-makers,
wholesale stationers, letter-press printers, printing-ink makers,
composition-roller makers, engravers on wood, lithographic printers,
hot-pressers, and book-binders. But those three men, of whom Gutenberg
was chief, wrought at most of these branches of business with their own
hands, or by the workmen whom they taught, in the printing rooms of the
Zum Jungen.
Schoeffer had great skill and facility in getting out the cut type,
as well as in directing others to work after his models. When he had
wrought at it some time and prepared a quantity of type, Gutenberg said
to him,--
“Our initial letters must be illuminated, and as you have had much
practice in this department of writing, being an illuminator of
manuscript works, I doubt not you will execute them as they should be.”
“I will do my best,” replied Schoeffer, pleasantly. The result was
that in a short time he had designed and cut a number of illuminated
letters, to be used at the beginning of chapters. As a specimen of his
handiwork, we give the initial B, taken from a work of the Mentz press,
and described on the following page.
Let us carefully notice this exquisite letter. On the left hand are
elaborated fern leaves and other foliage; while the centre is dense
with climbing luxuriance. On the right, in the broad curves of the
initial, are delicate flowers suggestive of snow crystals, cerastium,
and mignonnette,--dainty bits of infloresence just fitted to alight
with feathery footfall on the back of the elephantine letter. On the
other side is a bird taking its flight, and a dog pursuing. The letter
itself originally was in pale blue, the ornaments in which it was
placed being red; the figures and flowers were transparent and white,
as well as the vellum on which the book was printed; showing that the
art of engraving was no longer in its infancy, and also that the artist
was well practiced in his profession.
[Illustration: FROM THE PSALTER, PSALM I.]
Well done, Peter Schoeffer! we cannot sufficiently admire thy taste,
patience, and perseverance. What an infinite deal of labor and pains
it cost thee to design and engrave hundreds of these illuminated
letters for the Bible! Besides, there was the general superintendence
of type-cutting; for every letter was drafted by the same hand. We
are puzzled to think where you acquired your skill. It is said that
you were famously started under the fostering care of Father Melchoir,
himself a good copyist, and then improved your style by two years’
application at the University of Paris. And all this that the Bible
may be fittingly printed! Little did you think when a student at the
Cathedral of Strasbourg, for what you were studying. Neither did it
occur to you while your eye was schooled for the conception, and your
hand for the execution of beauty, at Paris, for what you were preparing.
In due time Martin returned from his mission, bearing a Bible in
manuscript, in a satchel on his back, and great were the rejoicings and
congratulations of the firm and their families.
Gutenberg, Faust, and Schoeffer now became more and more absorbed in
the various divisions of the art of printing, preparatory to setting
the Bible in type in the best style.
The simple branch of inventing and making ink, for example, cost time
and patience; many experiments being tried before the right combination
was found. Common writing ink would not answer, being so liquid as
to deface the paper with blots. Finally, a mixture of linseed oil
and lamp-black or soot was tried, and found to possess the right
consistence. They succeeded so well in compounding it that, as one has
said, “their works show a depth and richness of color which excites
the envy of the moderns; nor has it turned brown, or rendered the
surrounding paper in the least degree dingy.” It was applied to the
type by dabbers. These were balls of skin stuffed with wool, precisely
like those used forty years ago. The types were disposed in cases much
as they are now.
The firm was getting on finely, having prepared several hundred pounds’
weight of type for the Bible, when Schoeffer, getting weary of this
monotonous cutting, “and being ardently desirous to improve the art,”
bethought him of trying to invent a simpler and speedier method of
preparing type.
It is interesting to follow this scribe, belonging to an ancient and
honorable craft, as he helped pull it down to build up one infinitely
better. It was like taking down a cottage from a goodly site, to make
room for a Crystal Palace that would last through all time. Not that
Schoeffer was alone in this enterprise; he simply aided others. He may
have suggested the new device of casting type, and indeed some go as
far as to give him the entire credit of the conception and execution of
this process. He had taste, culture, and adaptation to circumstances;
Gutenberg was ingenious, and Faust wealthy; and there was every motive
to arouse Schoeffer’s mind to activity. Says a discriminating English
writer, “It seems most probable that where three ingenious men are
bound together by art and interest, no one of them can lay exclusive
claim to any invention or undertaking executed in the work-shops and for
mutual benefit. Allowing, therefore, to Schoeffer the honor of having
hinted the plan, the other two may fairly put in a claim for their
portion of the credit on the score of their assistance, especially
since Gutenberg and Faust, being mechanics, would have engaged and
directed the workmen.”
Evidently at the suggestion of Schoeffer, the firm began to take casts
of type in moulds of plaster. This improvement on the old method was
really a great step onward, although the process of casting was slow
and tedious. A new mould was required for each letter; and let the
workman be ever so vigilant, no care could enable him to impress fully
and steadily into a soft substance so small a thing as a type is at the
face, while yet so long in the shank; accordingly, when he succeeded
well in his attempt, after the casting, there was a process of
finishing, to give it the well-defined sharpness absolutely necessary
in type. This improvement therefore was rather unsatisfactory, and led
to much consultation of the printers how they could carry it still
further. And here Peter Schoeffer’s practical talent appeared; for “it
was he who first planned the cutting of punches, whereby not only might
the most beautiful form of type the taste and skill of the artist
could suggest, be fairly stamped upon the matrix, but a degree of
finish quite unattainable in type cut in metal or wood could be given
to the face; whilst to the shank, by the very same process by which the
face was cast, the mould would give perfect sharpness and precision of
angle.”
History relates that Peter Schoeffer privately cut matrices for the
whole alphabet, and showed the letters cast from them to Gutenberg and
Faust.
“Are these letters cast in moulds?” asked the latter, in great
astonishment.
“They are,” replied Schoeffer.
“Mirabile! this surpasses all!” exclaimed he. “Why, you are showing
yourself a great genius, I must acknowledge. How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight!” replied Peter.
“I seldom flatter, but you are a young man of promise; and I predict
that you will make your mark in the world! I suppose you think that is
slight praise, for a practiced scribe ought to be able to write his
name in gold letters,--making his mark is said of those who can only
make a mark for their name;” and Faust laughed at his own wit. “But you
know what I mean. In my opinion, you will yet come to distinction!”
But how shall we describe the emotions of those first printers, those
cool yet enthusiastic men, as they beheld the first printed page
of the Bible! The press worked admirably; the type was uniform and
elegant; and the expression given on the vellum, unequaled in beauty.
At sight of it a glow of honest pride filled each heart; and how could
the most undevout repress emotions of praise to God?
We have a glimpse of the little company in the frontispiece, taken from
an old painting. This was in the spring of 1450, a year memorable as
commencing the issue of the famous Mazarine Bible. But with all the
toil and diligence bestowed upon it, it was not completed until five
years after, in 1455.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]