250TH ANNIVERSARY
Johann Gutenberg
Leaf from the Gutenberg Bible
(1450)
Printed between 1450 and 1455, the Gutenberg Bible ranks as one of the supreme achievements of the western world. Books had been produced in China and Korea long before Johann Gutenberg, a goldsmith in Mainz, Germany, created the movable press. His invention, which made it possible to print books mechanically, is considered as revolutionary as the wheel, the discovery of fire and gunpowder.
The Gutenberg Bible is also known as the 42-line Bible because its text in Latin with large Gothic characters was printed in two columns of 42 lines each. The text resembled the handwriting of the scribes of that period. It is sometimes called the Mazarin Bible, named after the Cardinal of France in whose library a copy was found in 1763. Gutenberg's cumbersome printing presses, which required heavy physical labor to operate, were probably modeled after the wine presses used in the Rhenish vineyards.
Gutenberg printed around 200 copies of the Bible. Only fifty years after the Bible was first printed, more than ten million books had been produced on movable presses. As an example of the art of printing, the Gutenberg Bible has never been surpassed.
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