The Cologne Chronicle, which was printed in 1499, has been most unfairly quoted by the advocates of Coster in support of their assertions; and the passage which appeared most to favour their argument they have ascribed to Ulric Zell, the first person who established a press at Cologne. A shrewd German,[III-6] however, has most clearly shown, from the same chronicle, that the actual testimony of Ulric Zell is directly in opposition to the claims advanced by the advocates of Coster. The passage on which they rely is to the following effect: “Item: although the art [of printing] as it is now commonly practised, was discovered at Mentz, yet the first conception of it was discovered in Holland from the Donatuses, which before that time were printed there.” This we are given to understand by Meerman and Koning is the statement of Ulric Zell. A little further on, however, the Chronicler, who in the above passage appears to have been speaking in his own person from popular report, thus proceeds: “But the first inventor of printing was a citizen of Mentz, though born at Strasburg,[III-7] named John Gutemberg: Item: from Mentz the above-named art first came to Cologne, afterwards to Strasburg, and then to Venice. This account of the commencement and progress of the said art was communicated to me by word of mouth by that worthy person Master Ulric Zell of Hanau, at the present time [1499] a printer in Cologne, through whom the said art was brought to Cologne.” At this point the advocates of Coster stop, as the very next sentence deprives them of any advantage which they might hope to gain from the “impartial testimony of the Cologne Chronicle,” the compiler of which proceeds as follows: “Item: there are certain _fanciful people_ who say that books were printed before; but _this is not true_; for in no country are books to be found printed before that time.”[III-8] [Footnote III-6: Friedrich Lehne, Einige Bemerkungen über das Unternehmen der gelehrten Gesellschaft zu Harlem, ihrer Stadt die Ehre der Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst zu ertrotzen, S. 24-26. Zweite Ausgabe, Mainz. 1825.] [Footnote III-7: This is a mistake into which the compiler of the chronicle printed at Rome, 1474, by Philippus de Lignamine, has also fallen. Gutemberg was not a native of Strasburg, but of Mentz.] [Footnote III-8: Mallinkrot appears to have been the first who gave a translation of the entire passage in the Cologne Chronicle which relates to the invention of printing. His version of the last sentence is as follows: “Reperiuntur Scioli aliquot qui dicant, dudum ante hæc tempora typorum ope libros excusos esse, qui tamen et se et alios decipiunt; nullibi enim terrarum libri eo tempore impressi reperiuntur.”--De Ortu et Progressu Artis Typographicæ, p. 38. Colon. Agrippinæ, 1640.]