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It does not appear that he was educated in Italy; but for a number of years he was in Rome, as a lawyer engaged in the Papal court; and to his good service there as King's proctor he probably owed his advancement to Durham. Whilst at Rome, he bought great numbers of the Latin classics, especially those which were coming fresh from the press of Sweynheym and Pannartz.
In Bavaria they used the skill of the wood-engravers, and at Augsburg, Ulm, and Nuremberg produced the first illustrated printed books. It was two Germans of the old school, Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz, who carried the art to Italy, casting the first type in Roman characters, and printing editions of the classics, first in the Benedictine monastery of St.
I know ye, as all good workmen are known by your works. Come hither and I will tell ye." They advanced gingerly from different sides; each regulating his advance by the other's. "My children," said Clement, "I saw a Lactantius in Rome, printed by Sweynheim and Pannartz, disciples of Fust." "D'ye hear that, Pannartz? our work has gotten to Rome already."
"By your blue eyes and flaxen hair I wist ye were Germans; and the printing-press spoke for itself. Who then should ye be but Fust's disciples, Pannartz and Sweynheim?" The honest Germans were now astonished that they had suspected magic in so simple a matter. "The good father hath his wits about him, that is all," said Pannartz.
"Sweynheim!" The men started to their feet. "Pannartz!" They scuttled into the wood, and were seen no more. Clement was amazed, and stood puzzling himself. Presently a face peeped from behind a tree. Clement addressed it, "What fear ye?" A quavering voice replied "Say, rather, by what magic you, a stranger, can call us by our names! I never clapt eyes on you till now." "O, superstition!
With a like appropriate reference to the common bond of sympathy, the Roxburghe toasts included the uncouth names of certain primitive printers, as Valdarfer himself, Pannartz, Fust, and Schoeffher, terminating in "The cause of Bibliomania all over the world."
The first books in which any Greek type occurs are Cicero's Offices, printed by Faust and Schoeffer in 1465, directly after the resumption of their establishment; and Lactantius, printed the same year by Sweynheim and Pannartz, in the monastery of Soubiaco at Rome. The first book printed entirely in Greek was Constantine Lascar's Greek Grammar, Milan, 1476.
"Oh, the Lactantius; that was printed on the top of the Apennines." "What, did the printing-press fall down there out o' the moon?" "Nay, messer," said the trader, laughing; "it shot up there out of Germany. See the title-page!" Gerard took the Lactantius eagerly, and saw the following Opera et impensis Sweynheim et Pannartz Alumnorum Joannis Fust. Impressum Subiacis. "Will ye buy, messer?
He himself died long before printing was invented, in the year 1340, but he left behind him his great work, Biblia sacra cum interpretationibus et postillis, which became the source of trouble to the printers, Schweynheym and Pannartz, of Subiaco and Rome.
The Germans who brought the art down into Italy, Sweynheym and Pannartz at Rome, Wendelin and Jenson at Venice, printed scarcely anything that was not classical: Latin authors and Latin translations from the Greek.
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