1a. THE GUTENBERG BIBLE

[BIBLIA LATINA] (the “Gutenberg Bible” or “42-Line Bible”). [Mainz: Johannes Gutenberg, Johannes Fust, and Peter Schoeffer, in press before October 1454]. Fragment of 1 vellum leaf.

Gutenberg’s metal type supply for the 42-Line Bible consisted of at least 270 different “sorts,” encompassing upper- and lower-case letters, ligatures, special adjoining and other variant forms of letters, abbreviations, and punctuation. Cast individually without the repeated use of a permanent punch or matrix (as would become the norm in Schoeffer’s typecasting from c. 1470 onward), these earliest sorts appear to have been manufactured by means of manually pressing individual calligraphic elements – vertical, horizontal, and connecting strokes – into a temporary mould that could be used to cast only one piece of type.

Although the fifteenth-century documentation is vague, it appears that after long experimentation with the first press and printing inks, by 1454-55 Gutenberg and his financier Johnann Fust of Mainz had enough capital and skilled labor in place for “the work of the books” to begin; this enterprise produced about 158 to 180 copies of the Latin Bible, including about 40 copies on vellum (calfskin). Sold mainly to churches and monasteries, the Bibles were handed over to rubricators, who added by hand all of the headlines, initials, rubrics, and chapter numbers. Once bound, they were ready for use, which in some cases apparently lasted into the seventeenth century.

Peter Schoeffer’s role in the production of the Gutenberg Bible is not documented directly, but his training as a calligrapher, his close association with Johann Fust c. 1455, and his own printing expertise as an independent printer after Fust’s death in 1466 all suggest that he was a central participant in the first European printing. Moreover, the aesthetic and functional improvements of the 42-Line Bible type over Gutenberg’s earlier D-K type suggests that a skilled calligrapher such as Schoeffer contributed to the design of the second type, which in turn was also a direct model for the beautiful “Psalter” types used by Fust and Schoeffer from 1457 onward.

This vellum leaf, folio 27 from a lost first volume of the Gutenberg Bible, was preserved as binder’s waste before it emerged in a Munich rare book dealer’s shop in 1909. It was purchased by Charles N. Prothro for his wife Elizabeth Perkins Prothro for Christmas in 1964, and she presented it along with her Bible collection to Bridwell Library in 1996.

Full page view, recto            Full page view, verso

1. Gutenberg, Trier II leaves 2. Biblia latina (B-36)

3. Psalter