John Henry Hessels

“ The suit was apparently decided in Fust’s favour, November 6, 1455, in the refectory of the Barefooted Friars of Mainz, when Fust made oath that he himself had borrowed 1550 guilders and given them to Gutenberg. There is no evidence that Fust, as is usually supposed, removed the portion of the printing materials covered by his mortgage to his own house, and carried on printing there with the aid of Peter Schöffer, of Gernsheim (who is known to have been a scriptor at Paris in 1449) , to whom, probably about 1455, [1] he gave his only daughter Dyna or Christina in marriage. ”

“ Nothing is known to have appeared for three years after the storming and capture of Mainz in 1462. ↑ Some confusion in the history of the Fust family has arisen since the publication of Bernard’s Orig. de l’imprimerie (1853) . On p. 262, vol. i. he gave an extract from the correspondence between Oberlin and Bodmann (now preserved in the Paris Nat. Library) , from which it would appear that Peter Schöffer was the son-in-law, not of Johann Fust, but of a brother of his, Conrad Fust. ”

“ Their first publication was the Psalter, August 14, 1457, a folio of 350 pages, the first printed book with a complete date, and remarkable for the beauty of the large initials printed each in two colours, red and blue, from types made in two pieces. [2] The Psalter was reprinted with the same types, 1459 (August 29) , 1490, 1502 (Schöffer’s last publication) and 1516. ”