Note 253 — XXI

It is possible that other books, now lost and forgotten, may have been printed in the small types, but Helbig thinks that the types were made expressly for the Letters of Indulgence, as bank-notes are now made, with the intention that the copies of each edition should be exactly alike in appearance, and that they should be difficult of imitation. Bernard dissents from the belief that the Letters of Indulgence were printed by Gutenberg. He attributes them to some printer of unknown name in Mentz, supposed by him to have been either the false workman described by Junius, or some graduate or seceding malcontent of Gutenberg’s printing office. But we have no evidence of a typographical printer before Gutenberg. Jäck has endeavored to prove that two Letters were printed by Pfister of Bamberg. De la Borde thinks one of the faces of type used in the Letters was cut by Schœffer in a friendly competition with Gutenberg. These conjectures cannot be made plausible.