Item Info

Publication Year: ca. 1455
Media Type: Albumen Prints
Source: Rare Book Department
Notes:

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This item appeared in the exhibition "Sacred Stories: The World's Religious Traditions" in the Rare Book Department, August 2015-January 2016.

This is the label from that exhibition:

This leaf comes from the first significant book printed in the West, now widely known as the Gutenberg Bible, but printed anonymously around 1455. Johann Gutenberg was the inventor of printing in Europe, and the Christian Bible in Latin was his first major work. This leaf comes from an imperfect copy sold in 1920 that was broken up into leaves, each finely bound in a leather volume and sold separately as A Noble Fragment, accompanied by a bibliographic essay. It is one of two leaves the Library owns, both from the same original copy. Today, fewer than 50 copies survive, many of which are incomplete.

Notes:

This leaf is from one of Johannes Gutenberg’s original bibles printed about 1450, using his process of moveable (interchangeable) type. The bible was printed at the rate of 300 pages per day. Each bible in the edition of 200 consisted of over 600 pages bound into two volume sets. When the project was well into the second year, Gutenberg’s business backer, Johann Fust, sued Gutenberg for repayment of the loans, plus interest. Gutenberg lost the legal battle as well as his equipment and type and Fust continued using Gutenberg's former employees and equipment to complete the next project. 

The intention of early printers was to make their books mimic manuscripts by closely imitating hand written styles. Gutenberg based his letterforms on the liturgical scripts of his era, blackletter, in two variants—textura quadrata and Schwabacher. He also developed an oil-based ink that would better adhere to his metal type. 

It has been suggested that Gutenberg included several variations of each letter to mimic the irregularities of handwriting as well as ligatures, or combined letters, that were used by scribes to control letter fitting. Daniel Berkeley Updike writes that the variations on the same letter might not be meant to mimic handwriting but instead were the result of varying skills of the type casters who made the type.

There are 48 surviving copies of Gutenberg's bible throughout the world, although only 21 are complete.

Country: Country:Germany
City/Town/Township:Mainz

Call Number: CW137