Johann Fust or Faust (c. 1400 – October 30, 1466) was an early German printer.
Family background
Fust was born to a burgher family of Mainz, traceable back to the early thirteenth century. Members of the family held many civil and religious offices.
The name was written "Fust" until 1506, when Peter Schöffer, in dedicating the German translation of Livy to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, called his father-in-law "Faust." Thenceforward, the family assumed this name. The Fausts of Aschaffenburg, an old and quite distinct family, placed Johann Fust in their pedigree. Johann's brother Jacob, a goldsmith, was one of the burgomasters in 1462, when Mainz was stormed and sacked by the troops of Count Adolf II of Nassau, in the course of which he seems to have been killed (suggested by a document dated May 8, 1678).
Printing
Fust, along with his brother, was a member of the goldsmith's guild of Strasbourg, as well as working as a financier. Because of his connection with Johann Gutenberg, he has been called the inventor of printing, and the instructor as well as the partner of Gutenberg. Some see him as a patron and benefactor who saw the value of Gutenberg's discovery and supplied him with the means to carry it out, whereas others portray him as a speculator who took advantage of Gutenberg's necessity and robbed him of the profits of his invention. Whatever the truth, the Helmasperger document of November 6, 1455, shows that Fust advanced money to Gutenberg (apparently 800 guilders in 1450, and another 800 in 1452) to carry on his work, and that Fust, in 1455, brought a suit against Gutenberg to recover the money he had lent, claiming 2026 guilders for principal and interest. It appears that he had not paid in the 300 guilders a year which he had undertaken to furnish for expenses, wages, etc., and, according to Gutenberg, had said that he had no intention of claiming interest.
The suit was apparently decided in Fust's favour, November 6, 1455, in the refectory of the Barefooted Friars of Mainz, when Fust swore that he himself had borrowed 1550 guilders and given them to Gutenberg. There is no evidence that Fust, as is usually supposed, removed the portion of the printing materials covered by his mortgage to his own house, and carried on printing there with the aid of Peter Schöffer of Gernsheim (who is known to have been a scriptor at Paris in 1449), who in about 1455 married Fust's only daughter Christina. Their first publication was the Psalter, August 14, 1457, a folio of 350 pages, the first printed book with a complete date, and remarkable for the beauty of the large initials printed each in two colours, red and blue, from types made in two pieces. New editions of the Psalter were with the same type in 1459 (August 29), 1490, 1502 (Schöffer's last publication) and 1516.
Fust and Schöffer's other works include: Guillaume Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum (1459), folio, 160 leaves the Clementine Constitutions, with the gloss of Johannes Andreae (1460), 51 leaves Biblia Sacra Latina (1462), folio 2 vols., 242 and 239 leaves, 48 lines to a full page the Sixth Book of Decretals, with Andreae's gloss, December 17, 1465, folio 141 leaves Cicero. De officiis, 88 leaves.
Fust and Schöffer
Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer carried on a partnership after Fust sued and won a case against Johann Gutenberg in 1455 for the right to take back his loans that he offered Gutenberg years earlier. Many rumors came to light about why Fust turned his back on Gutenberg merely a year before the 42-Line Bible was to be completed (even though Gutenberg had not only agreed to pay back the original loans but also was allowing Fust to add interest onto them).
Peter Schöffer was an associate of Fust that worked as an apprentice to Gutenberg during the making of the 42-Line Bible. Schöffer took Fust's side when the court case was presented to Gutenberg, and subsequently had his name join Fust's on the completed copies of the Bible. The twist is that Schöffer ended up marrying Fust’s only daughter, Christina, years later.
As a businessman
Johann Fust was not much of a printer but more of a businessman and a salesman. Fust loaned 800 guilders (with an interest of 6%) to Johannes Gutenberg with which to start his original project. Later, another large sum of money was handed over from Fust to Gutenberg. At this point, Fust felt as if he needed to be included as a partner on the project since he had now invested so much into it.