Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/447

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the later work of gutenberg.
437

a quarto of 20 leaves.[1] It is possible, but not certain, that Gutenberg printed these books. A Treatise on Reason and Conscience,[2] by Matthew of Cracow, a small quarto of 22 leaves, and A Summary of the Articles of Faith, by Thomas Aquinas, a quarto of 12 leaves, printed in the types of the Catholicon, may be confidently accepted as the work of Gutenberg. But one copy or fragment of some of these works is known. Gutenberg may have printed many other works which have been destroyed and forgotten.[3]

Fac-simile of the Types of the Treatise on the Celebration of the Mass.
[From Fischer.]

The existing copies or fragments of pamphlets and books printed before 1462 are enough to prove that printing met

  1. Bernard says that some of these works were probably printed by an unknown printer at Mentz (not the printer of the Indulgence of 31 lines); but this conjecture of two printing offices, about which history and tradition are silent, which never produced any work of value, cannot be accepted.
  2. A copy of this book in the National Library at Paris has an annotation which sets forth that "Henry Kepfer of Mentz put this book in pledge for twelve days, and has not reclaimed it. …" Henry Kepfer was one of Gutenberg's workmen who appeared for him on the trial.
  3. Fischer says that a library at Mentz once contained several pamphlets printed by Gutenberg in the large types of the Bible of 36 lines. He gives fac-similes of the illuminated initials in one of these pamphlets, which closely resemble those of the Psalter of 1457. This similarity is more than an indication that the letters of this Psalter were made by Gutenberg.