20 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 
omitted ‘from the first printed Bibles ; and none of the earliest 
printed books gives any indication as to who invented the new art of 
printing. 
It is disappointing that the first promoters of the art of printing 
books said so little concerning the novel inventions that brought 
their calling into existence. Some of the old printers were devoted 
to their craft ; many of them were fond of learning ; and their call- 
ing was to them an estimable means of livelihood. They were an 
inner circle, and knew more of the early stages through which the 
art of printing passed, and by whom its essential processes were in- 
vented than the outer world did. But the lips of the earliest crafts- 
men were sealed ; and if those of the second generation told the 
history of their art, they told it so badly, and each so eagerly 
pointed out his own favorite as the true inventor, that their asser- 
tions are less satisfactory than the reticence of their predecessors. 
On this subject even John Schoeffer equivocates. The books pro- 
duced from his press during the twenty years he was a printer are 
double-tongued witnesses telling two versions of this story. John 
Schoeffer succeeded to the printing business of Fust and Schoeffer 
at Mainz. Hewas son of Peter Schoeffer, Fust’s partner, and his 
mother was Fust’s daughter. According to report she was given in 
marriage to Peter Schoeffer by Fust to consolidate the inter- 
ests of the Mainz printing firm, and as an appreciative token 
from Fust of Schoeffer’s services. Related as he was by ties of 
marriage and blood to Fust and Schoeffer. and as their immediate 
successor in business, John Schoeffer was likeliest of all men to 
know the respective inventive services of his predecessors to their 
common art, and of all men was in duty bound to see that his books 
said nothing about the invention of printing at variance with the 
exact truth. In 1505, soon after his father’s death, in the dedica- 
tion of his German edition of Livy to Maximilian, he says printing 
was invented at Mainz, “firstly by the ingenious Johann Gutenberg 
in 1450, and thereafter improved and made permanent by the 
diligence, cost and labors of John Fust and Peter Schoeffer” ; 
yet, in some of his other books, he says the author and inventor of 
the art of printing was his grandfather, John Fust. The words used 
are: ‘‘ John Schoeffer, cujus Avus primus Artis impressoriz fuit 
inventor et auctor.” 
