The text, in black, begins: 'In principio creavit deus celu et terram' – 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth'. In red is a brief explanatory note: 'Incipit liber Beresith que nos Genesim vo' – 'Here begins the Book of Be-reshit, which we call Genesis'. (Use your browser's 'back' button to return here afterwards.) What is shown on this page?

You can directly compare the two versions side-by-side, and find out more about the background of this remarkable book, in the Treasures in Full: Gutenberg Bible section of our Online Gallery. What is the difference between the vellum and paper copies? The result was a work of exceedingly high quality which set standards for book production which in many ways are still unsurpassed today. Many, including the British Library's lavish paper copy illustrated above, married the new technology of printing with the old, and contain hand-painted decoration so as to imitate the appearance of an illuminated manuscript. Twenty are complete, two of them at the British Library: one vellum, and one on paper. Only 48 copies are known to have survived, of which 12 are printed on vellum and 36 on paper. The text is the Vulgate: St Jerome's Latin translation, the 'international standard' version of the time. This Bible was the work of a partnership between Johann Gutenberg, Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer, which was dissolved in 1455 after the completion of the book. When was this book made and how many survive? This was a sign that it was felt by those in authority to be dangerous and challenging to their position. As a consequence, the printed book also led to more stringent attempts at censorship. More than ever before, it enabled people to follow debates and take part in discussions of matters that concerned them. The success of printing meant that books soon became cheaper, and ever wider parts of the population could afford them. Gutenberg's invention did not make him rich, but it laid the foundation for the commercial mass production of books. Piccolomini had seen parts of it and it had such neat lettering that one could read it without glasses. On that day Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, reported that in Frankfurt, the year before, a marvellous man had been promoting the Bible. We know for certain about this first printed Bible from a letter of 12 March 1455. They must have been aware that a successful launch would be much easier if they began with a high-profile book of importance beyond their local area. In 1454 they showed their product to an international audience in Frankfurt, perhaps even before the project was completed. Gutenberg and his team also knew that they needed to market their new invention. The Bible might sell fewer copies in each region, but it had the potential to sell all over Western Europe. Perhaps Gutenberg realised that, in order for a large-scale printing project to be commercially successful, he had to aim at an international market. Missals were different from region to region, however. The texts of the Bible were reorganised in a Missal to suit the complicated order in which extracts were to be read. Parts of the Bible would have been used in church every day, but not in the order in which they appear in the Bible. This is not an obvious choice of text, for the Bible was not very central to the daily life of the Church in the 15th century. Gutenberg's first and only large-scale printing enterprise was the Bible in Latin. Now it was possible to speed up the process without sacrificing quality. Outside Asia, that is: some printed books had been produced in China and Korea using wood and later bronze, but in any case Gutenberg's process was different. How did the Gutenberg Bible come about?īefore Gutenberg, every book outside Asia had to be copied by hand. He may have experimented with printing even at that stage, but probably did not begin until he returned to Mainz in around 1448, when he borrowed a large sum of money. In an attempt to make money, he set up a number of innovative schemes.

While still a young man, he left for political reasons and settled in Strasbourg. He was born about 1400, the son of a rich family in Mainz, Germany. This was the first example of mass production. In the mid-15th century Johann Gutenberg invented a mechanical way of making books. Johann Gutenberg, Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer. Gutenberg's (42-line) Bible: Opening of Genesis.

Gutenberg bible