(Bible in Latin) | Leaf from the Gutenberg Bible

(Bible in Latin) 

Bible, [Mainz: Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust, 1455]

Royal folio (390 x 285mm), single leaf from end of Numbers 21 to the beginning of Numbers 23. 42 lines, 2 columns, typed. Edges stained red, capital strokes in red; page headings and chapter titles in red and blue ink. Two Lombardic capitals, one of them in red ink and flourished. Stray marks in red ink from the composition of capital strokes and light matburn. 

Leaf from the first substantial European printed book, produced under the temporary partnership of Johann Gutenberg, inventor of European typography, and Johann Fust, a well-off Mainz lawyer. Production of the edition of more than 640 leaves presumably took several years and a team of workmen. The humanist Aeneas Sylvius, Latin secretary of Emperor Fredrick III, saw sample sheets of the Bible at the Imperial diet in Frankfurt am Main, in late October or early November 1454, and again at Wiener Neustatt in March 1455, from where he wrote about the amazing production to his friend Cardinal Carvajal in Rome. Copies were printed in separate issues of paper and vellum, in a total edition of 180 copies, and were widely distributed. 

REFERENCE:

500th Anniversary Pictorial Census n. 128; Formatting the Word of God 2.1; Goff B-526; GW 4201; BMC I 17 (IC.55); BSB-Ink B-408; Bod-inc B-237. Censuses: De Ricci Mayence 34.53=78; Schwenke 37; Needham P18; Folter 45