Bergellanus, John Arnold

, the author of a poem, in praise of printing, written in Latin hexameters and pentameters, has escaped tlfe researches of biographers as to much personal history. It is, however, conjectured, that his proper name was Arnold or Arnold i, and that he was called Bergellauus from his country. It is supposed also that he came to Mentz, and was employed there, either? as a workman, or as a corrector of the press. John Conrad Zeltner, who is of this last opinion, has accordingly asigned him a short article in his Latin history of the correctors of the press, p. 79, 80, where he calls him John Anthony, instead of John Arnold. Struvius (Introd. in not. rei litterariae, p. 892) considers Bergellanus as the first historian of printing, but in this he is mistaken. Mentel, in his “Paraenesis de vera origine Typographic, p. 52, says that Bergellanus’s poem was printed in 1510, which could not be the case, as mention is made in it of Charles V, who was not emperor until 1519. Walkius, who wrote in 1608, asserts that Bergellanus wrote or published his poem eighty years before, which brings us to 1528, but in tact it was not written or published until 1540 and 1541, as appears clearly by the author’s dedication to cardinal Albert, archbishop of Mentz and marquis of Brandebourg. There have been six editions of it, separate or joined to other works on the subject. The two last are by Prosper Marchand in his History of Printing, Hague, 1740, 4to, and by Woltius in his” Monumenta typographica." ²