Highlights of the Exhibition
The Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Bible Collection
at
Bridwell
Library
1996-2006
September 7-November 18, 2006
Introduction of Eusebian Canon Tables
Biblia latina. Basel: Bernhard Richel, [not after 1474].
Bernard Richel’s Bible of c. 1474 was the first to provide two “helps” for recognizing parallel passages: the Eusebian Canon tables (a forgotten feature of thirteenth-century Bibles) and the now-familiar marginal references. It was also the first edition to include the tractate of Menardus (apparently a Carthusian of Eisenach), a summary and interpretative guide for each book of the Bible. Moreover, Richel was the first printer to specialize in “ready-to-use” Bibles. Whereas Fust and Schoeffer had printed red rubrics and some small initials in red or blue in their Bible of 1462, Richel provided rubrics in red and printed all of the large and small initials with ornamental woodblocks, so that rubrication by hand was no longer necessary for use. Note the marginal notes here in Mark 16.
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