Cicero, De officiis. Paradoxa stoicorum (Mainz: Johann Fust & Peter Schoeffer, 1465)
Printing began not with a revolution, but with continuity
initials were to be painted
Through the bequest of the St John’s alumnus and avid book collector Nathaniel Crynes (d. 1745), the College received this copy of the first printed edition of Cicero’s De officiis and Paradoxa stoicorum, produced in 1465 by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer. Both men had previously worked with Johannes Gutenberg – Fust as financier and Schoeffer as apprentice – before taking over the press following Fust’s successful lawsuit against Gutenberg.
While Gutenberg is traditionally credited with the invention of printing with movable type, Schoeffer’s contribution was long underestimated. The scholar Lotte Hellinga demonstrated that Schoeffer achieved a decisive technical breakthrough by developing metal type that was both durable under intensive use and sufficiently versatile for a wide range of texts. First employed in 1459, this type was used six years later for the main text of this edition of Cicero, marking a significant moment in the history of European printing.
This volume, the oldest printed book at St John’s College, illustrates how closely early printing imitated the appearance of medieval manuscripts. The transition from manuscript to print was gradual rather than abrupt. Its typefaces replicate Gothic script, complete with ligatures and abbreviations familiar from manuscript culture. Red ink is used for running titles, spaces were deliberately left for hand-painted initials, and parchment was chosen instead of paper. Had the volume been fully decorated after printing, the illusion would have been almost complete.