Note 284 — XXII

One day when I was reading this interesting passage [of Bodmann, concerning the types of Gutenberg], the idea presented itself to me that it would be well to examine with care a certain volume printed by Frederic Hauman, which was in a neglected corner of my library. I took it up, not thinking that I should make any discovery. I knew that the last productions of the presses of Nicholas Bechtermüntz were printed with other types than those of Gutenberg, and that, among the known impressions of the Brothers of the Life-in-Common at Marienthal, none were executed with these characters. But judge of my astonishment, of my joy, perhaps, when I recognized in this neglected book not only the types of the Catholicon of 1460, the only ones appertaining to Gutenberg that could have been employed in the books that proceeded from the presses of Eltvill, but also the types that had been used in the Letters of Indulgence of 1454 and 1455, in the Appeal against the Turks of 1455, the Calendar of 1457 described by Fischer, the Bible of 36 lines, and all the characters of Albert Pfister—or, to be brief,—when I recognized the most ancient types of John Gutenberg. Helbig, Une découverte pour l’histoire de l’imprimerie, p. 4.