📚 The Talented Scribe and the Inventor Peter Schöffer (born in 1425) was a skilled scribe and calligrapher working in Paris. Before the era of mass printing, his beautiful handwriting was highly valued. He was hired as an assistant by an inventor who was developing metal type casting. Schöffer applied his artistic eye to the metal casting process, enhancing the beauty of the printed fonts. Together, they planned to make a fortune by printing and selling Bibles.
The Betrayal However, the investor who had lent money to the print shop suddenly demanded repayment. The shop owner, unable to pay, was forced to hand over everything—the printed Bibles, the printing press he had invented, and the entire workshop—and was kicked out. In a twist of fate, Peter Schöffer sided with the investor instead of his boss. He became the investor's partner and even married the investor's daughter. The father-in-law (the investor) and son-in-law (Schöffer) used the ousted inventor's technology to grow the business into Europe’s finest printing house, enjoying immense wealth and fame.
The Lonely Death of the Father of Printing On this day, February 3, 1468, Johannes Gutenberg, the unlucky inventor of movable metal type, passed away. Although he printed the world-famous "42-line Bible," he never earned a penny from it. He was buried in a church, but the building was destroyed during a war and later demolished. Even Gutenberg’s remains were lost to history, vanishing without a trace.
A History Predating Gutenberg Seventy-eight years before Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible, in July 1377 (the 7th year of King U of Goryeo), a book printed with movable metal type had already been published in the Kingdom of Goryeo (Korea). It is the "Jikji."
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The black text was printed using movable metal type, but the ornate red and blue decorations (initials) on the margins and at the beginning of paragraphs were hand-painted by artists after printing.
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