The downfall of the Roman Empire in the east and the discovery of the art of printing happened about the same time. Scholars had long trembled in view of the approach of Mahomet the second. Constantinople was captured by the Turks in 1458; then Chrysoloras, Gaza of Thessalonica, Demetrius Chalcondyles, Johannes Lascaris, Callistus, Constantius, Johannes Andronicus, and many other learned Greeks, fled into Italy for protection, where they found, at Florence, several Greek professors who had been persuaded by Cosmo de Medici to settle in that city. They settled in Florence and there interpreted the ancient writings which had been kept in the eastern metropolis. The best Italian scholars fell in with them and soon became enamored with the spirit of poetry, eloquence and history. Here a better philosophy was soon taken up, and the cunning of scholasticism, as known in the empty speculations of metaphysicians, gave place to the more profitable principles of moral philosophy. The study of the Greek language was introduced in England by William Grocyn, a fellow of New College, Oxford, who died about the year 1520.
"To the mechanical genius of Holland we must ascribe the discovery of the art of printing, for the original inventor was Laurentius John Coster, of Haerlem, who made his first essay with wooden types about the year 1430. The art was communicated by his servant to John Faust and John Guttenberg, of Mentz. It was carried to perfection by Peter Shoeffer, the son-in-law of Faustus, who invented the modes of casting metal types."
Trihemius, in his Chronicle, written A.D. 1514, says he had it from the mouth of Peter Shoeffer that the first book they printed with movable types was the Bible, about the year 1450, in which the expenses were so great that 4,000 florins were expended before they completed twelve sheets. The author of a manuscript, Chronicle of Cologne, compiled in 1499, also says that he was told by Ulric Zell, of Cologne, who himself introduced printing there in 1466, that the Latin Bible was first begun to be printed in the year of Jubilee, 1450, and that it was in large type. Mr. Edwards, of Pall Mall possessed a copy of this curious Bible in three volumes, bound in morocco. In his catalogue it was valued at £126. There, is a beautiful copy of this work in the Bodleian (or Bodleyan) Library in the University at Oxford.