the seventeenth century. The types of Gutenberg were in this house at the end of the sixteenth century, for Serarius, in his History of Mentz, says that he had seen them there.[1]
Humery's promise that, in the sale of the printing materials then contemplated, he would give preference to a citizen of Mentz, was obviously made at the request of the archbishop. It follows that the types of the dead printer were then regarded as relics of value of which the city should be proud. This request, which would not have been made without occasion, seems to confirm the conjecture that Gutenberg had previously sold the types, or at least the matrices, of the Bible of 36 lines to Albert Pfister, of the monastic town of Mamberg. It is not probable that the deed of gift would have been clogged with this stipulation, if there had been no sale.
This request of the archbishop is the only evidence we have that Gutenberg's work was appreciated, but the appreciation came when he was dead. No contemporary writer noticed the Bible of 42 lines, and no one during his lifetime suitably honored Gutenberg as a great inventor. The archbishop, who knew the merit of the man, and pitied his misfortunes, had not a word to say in the document that made him a courtier of his services as an inventor or printer.
This indifference or want of perception seems inexcusable, but it was not altogether without cause. The readers of that time were somewhat familiar with printed impressions in the form of block-books, and the Bible of 42 lines may have seemed to them but a block-book of larger size and of higher order. Knowing that engraving, ink, paper, and impression upon surfaces in relief, were used in both processes, the ordinary book-buyer could have inferred that type-printing was the natural outgrowth of the older and well-known art of block-printing. According to this view, Gutenberg invented little or nothing; he did but little more than combine some old and well-known processes; he distinguished himself more by the great size of his books than by the novelty or merit
- ↑ Helbig, Une découverte pour l'histoire de l'imprimerie, p. 4, note.
