Note 268 — XXII

Philip de Lignamine, in a book entitled A Continuation of the Chronicles of the Popes, which he printed in Rome in 1474, writes concerning the year 1458: “Jacob Gutenberg of Strasburg, and another called Fust, very skillful in the art of printing with characters of metal on parchment, each printed three hundred leaves daily at Mentz.” Jacob is an error of memory or of typography, and the mention of Strasburg as Gutenberg’s birthplace is incorrect, but the statement that he printed in 1458 is, no doubt, true. It seems the testimony of a printer, whose knowledge of the facts had been derived either from personal observation, or from the reports of workmen once employed at Mentz.