Not only was the time ripe for the invention of a new method of book-making, but the materials were ready with the vital exception of type, and that was within a step of discovery. The materials are paper, ink, presses, and type. Paper is supposed to have been invented by the Chinese about the end of the first century A. D., and to have been more or less known in the East for a long time before the knowledge of it was brought to Europe. The Arabs conquered Samarkand in 751, and from this conquest it is supposed that the knowledge of paper and paper-making came to Europe by way of Spain, the greater part of which was then in the hands of the Moors, who were themselves Arabs. As early as the eleventh century there were paper mills at Valencia, Xativa, and other Moorish towns in Spain. From Spain the art of paper-making spread to Italy where we know that there was a paper mill at Fabriano before 1340, and to France where there was a mill at Troyes about the same time. Not long after we find paper-making at Nuremberg. By the middle of the century paper was familiar throughout Europe, but the use of it was not extensive. The paper of that time did not lend itself readily to writing and the makers of the manuscripts preferred the use of parchment. Obviously, printing can not be done with writing ink. Very different qualities are necessary for the two arts, but as early as the beginning of the century special inks were being made for printing from blocks. Those inks were not exactly like those soon to be used for printing from type, but they were near enough in their general character to indicate the improvements which were needed to produce a true printer’s ink. Who invented these inks is not known, but it is generally supposed that they were invented by artists who were accustomed to the handling of color and pigments. The invention has been attributed by some to an unknown Italian painter, by others to Hubert Van Eyck, a great Dutch painter of the period. It is not probable, however, that the invention, if it can be said to be the invention of an individual, can ever be traced to its author. The press needed was only an adaptation of a very simple machine in common use for many different purposes. The use of the press in squeezing grapes for wine, in molding cheese and squeezing out the whey, and for a great number of other purposes was so common that the problem of the exertion of pressure was already solved. Everything was ready but the type, and when one sees how far men had gone toward the use of type one wonders that the invention was not made long before it really occurred. Probably it was only waiting for the imperious demand of necessity to spur some one to the making of the necessary experiments. CHAPTER II STEPS TOWARD TYPOGRAPHY