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Painting of Schoffer & Foust/Faust & Gutenburg

Peter Shöffer

[Schöffer, Schaffer, Shaffer] - The Shaffers were a German Family of olden days, many of them scholars. It was Peter Schöffer that was a part of John Gutenberg who made the first printing press in the world, in 1438. It was a rude wooden frame, with a movable platen or flat surface to hold the sheets of paper. The first types were of wood. The first book of all to be printed - and a great achievement it was to have sheets bound together in a volume-was the famous Gutenberg Bible that was printed somewhere between 1450 and 1455.

John Gutenberg was in partnership with Johann Fust. The partnership dissolved because of a misunderstanding. Gutenberg then formed a partnership with his younger brother to no success and wind up having to flee the city due to numerous lawsuits. Gutenberg had borrowed substantial sums of money from Fust, a goldsmith, lawyer, and money lender. When Gutenberg was unable to repay these sums, his press and types became Fust’s property.

After the dissolution with Gutenberg, Fust formed a partnership with Peter Schöffer who at the time was one of his servants and an ingenious printer. Schöffer privately cut matrices for the whole alphabet; and when he showed his master the type cut from these matrices, Fust was so much pleased that he gave Schöffer his only daughter, Christine, in marriage. Laurentius Coster discovered the use of wood blocks or plates on which the pages to be printed were engraved between 1440 and 1450, and Schöffer's improvement, casting the types by means of matrices, was made about 1456.

However the Catholic's were rather critical of his work and it is stated in the Catholic Encyclopedia "[Schöffer] had no share whatever either in the invention or in the improvement of typography, as has been claimed for him and his descendants; this is certain, notwithstanding the splendid impressions of the Psalters bearing his name and published in 1457 and 1459, the technical preparation of which has been ascribed to Gutenberg. The evident deterioration of books issued at the end of the century proves that Schöffer made no technical improvement in the art of printing. " But then again Schöffer was Protestant and they would be critical.

In partnership with his brother-in-law, Peter Schöffer, Fust carried on the work begun by Gutenberg. Fust and Schöffer were the first to print in colors (1457). They printed the first dated book, a great psalter (1457). Their Greek type was first used in 1465. After the death of Fust, Schöffer continued the work of the press.

After Peter's death, Schöffer's son John carried on the business, 1503-31. The son was a capable printer and exerted himself to improve the work produced by his press, but was unable to place himself in the front rank of printers of the time. A second son of Schöffer's, Peter the younger, was a capable die-cutter and printer, and engaged in his trade at Mainz, 1509-23; at Worms, 1512-29; at Strasburg, 1530-39; at Venice, 1541-42. His son Ivo took up his quarters at Mainz, 1531-55, and there carried on the printing business of his grandfather.

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