FUST, JOHANN (c. 1400-1466), early German printer, belonged to a rich and respectable burgher family of Mainz, which is known to have flourished from 1423, and to have held many civil and religious offices. Johann Fust appears to have been a money-lender or banker. He advanced money to Gutenberg (apparently 800 guilders in 1450, and another 800 in 1452) for carrying on his experiments in printing, and, in brought a suit against Gutenberg to recover the money he had lent, claiming 2,020 (more correctly 2,026) guilders for principal and interest. It appears that he had not paid in the 30o 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, Nov. 6, 1455, in the refectory of the Barefooted Friars of Mainz, when Fust made oath that he himself had borrowed 1,550 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 Schaffer, of Gernsheim (who is known to have been a scriptor at Paris in 1449), to whom, probably about 1455, he gave his only daughter Dyna or Christina in marriage. Their first publication was the Psalter, Aug. 14, 1457, a folio of 35o 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. The Psalter was reprinted with the same types, (Aug. 1502 (Schaffer's last publication) and 1516. In addition to the works already mentioned Fust and Schaffer printed : Durandus, 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 Decre tals, with Andreae's gloss, Dec. 17, 1465, folio, 141 leaves; Cicero, De officiis (1465), 4to, 88 leaves, the first edition of a Latin clas sic and the first book containing Greek characters, while in the colophon Fust for the first time calls Schaffer "puerum suum"; the same, Feb. 4, 1466; Grammatica rhytmica , folio, 11 leaves. They also printed in 1461-62 several papal bulls, procla mations of Adolf of Nassau, etc.
Fust is said to have gone to Paris in 1466 and to have died of the plague which raged there in August and September. He was formerly often confused with the famous magician Dr. Johann Faust, who, though an historical figure, had nothing to do with him (see FAUST).
See further the articles GUTENBERG and TYPOGRAPHY.