Note 329 — XXIII
Reading edition
Ten years before, John Schœffer had conceded full justice to Gutenberg, and had told the story with more truth. In the dedication of an edition of Livy, printed by him in 1505, John Schœffer uses this language: “Will your Majesty [addressing the Emperor Maximilian] deign to accept this book, printed in Mentz, the city in which the admirable art of typography was invented, in the year 1450, by the ingenious John Gutenberg, and was afterward perfected at the cost and by the work of John Fust and of Peter Schœffer . . . ” This acknowledgment did not prevent the Emperor from making a subsequent official declaration, in the privilege or copyright for a grand edition of Livy, published by the same printer, and dated December 9, 1518, that the grandfather of John Schœffer had invented printing [chalcographia]. So much for the strength of audacious falsehood! Bernard, De l’origine et des débuts, vol. I, p. 309.