Though no dated book is known printed at Strasburg before 1471, in which year Eggestein printed the _Decretum Gratiani_, and though Mentelin’s first dated book is of the year 1473, yet we know from the rubrications of a copy of the _Latin Bible_ in the library at Freiburg, that that book was finished, the first volume before 1460, and the second before 1461. Concerning the printer, John Mentelin, a good deal is known. Born at Schelestadt, he became a scribe and illuminator; but, like many others, abandoned the original business to become a printer. P. de Lignamine in his Chronicle says that by 1458, Mentelin had a press at Strasburg, and was printing, like Gutenberg, three hundred sheets a day. By 1461 he had finished printing the forty-nine line edition of the _Latin Bible_. He died on the 12th December 1478, leaving two daughters, one married to Adolf Rusch d’Ingwiller, his successor; the other, to Martin Schott, another Strasburg printer. Very few of his books are dated; and as his types have not yet been systematically studied, the books cannot be ranged in any accurate order. Taking the information in Lignamine’s Chronicle as exact, and we have no reason to doubt its accuracy, we may take certain books in the type of the Bible as the earliest of Mentelin’s books.[11] Round 1466 we can group some other books, the _Augustinus de arte predicandi_ and the _Homily on St. Matthew_ by St. Chrysostom. A copy of the former book in the British Museum is rubricated 1466; and of the latter a copy in the Spencer Collection has the same year added in manuscript. In Sir M. M. Sykes’ sale was a volume containing copies of these two books bound together in contemporary binding. About 1470, Mentelin issued a catalogue containing the titles of nine books, including a _Virgil_, a _Terence_, and a _Valerius Maximus_. Mentelin also printed the first edition of the Bible in German, a folio of 406 leaves. Several copies are known with the rubricated date of 1466; and the same date is also found in a copy of the _Secunda secundæ_ of Aquinas. Many other of his books contain manuscript dates, and show that they are considerably earlier than is usually supposed. [11] In the University Library, Cambridge, is a very interesting copy of the first volume of this Bible, bought at the Culemann sale. It consists for the most part of proof-sheets, and variations from the ordinary copies occur on almost every page. It is printed on small sheets of paper in the manner of a broadside, the sheets being pasted together at the inner margin.