Gutenberg Bible

The Gutenberg Bible was produced in Mainz, in the Holy Roman Empire, in the mid-15th century. The Library of Congress says printing was probably completed late in 1455; Encyclopaedia Britannica dates completion to about 1455. Johannes Gutenberg is traditionally credited as its printer, and historical records connect him and his business partner Johann Fust to the printing enterprise. The exact division of labor and financing is reconstructed from surviving documents and later scholarship. This Bible is recognized as the first large-format typographic Bible printed in Europe and one of the earliest major European books made with movable metal type. It should not be described as the first book printed with movable type worldwide: movable-type printing had earlier histories in East Asia.

The work contains the Latin Bible text known as the Vulgate, associated with the fourth-century translation of Jerome. Its pages are arranged in two columns, usually with 42 lines per page, which gives rise to the alternate name “42-line Bible.” It was printed in multiple volumes. The design drew on the appearance of contemporary manuscript books: blackletter type, dense columns and spaces for initials and decoration. The printed text was not the finished object. Rubricators and illuminators added colored initials, headings and other decoration by hand, and copies were bound in different ways. As a result, surviving copies vary in their ornament and binding even though their text derives from the same printing project.

The initial print run and number of surviving copies are estimates rather than settled exact counts. The City of Mainz's Gutenberg.de site reports that about 180 copies were produced, with roughly 150 on paper and 30 on parchment, and that 49 copies survive. The Library of Congress guide likewise describes a possible print run of up to 180, with about a quarter on vellum. UNESCO's Memory of the World record focuses on the Göttingen vellum copy and notes four complete vellum copies with all 1,282 pages. These accounts use different ways of counting copies and completeness, so totals should be treated as source-specific estimates. The Library of Congress's own copy is printed entirely on vellum.

The Gutenberg Bible demonstrates how early European printing combined mechanical reproduction with established manuscript practices. Movable metal type made it possible to reproduce a substantial text in multiple copies, while hand-applied decoration and individualized bindings preserved a role for skilled finishing. The Library of Congress describes the book as a turning point in Western European bookmaking. Gutenberg's work belongs within a global history of printing, however: Britannica notes that a Korean movable-metal-type book, Jikji, was printed decades earlier. The Gutenberg Bible's historical importance lies in its place in the development and spread of European typographic printing, not in an unqualified claim to be the world's first printed book.

The book is also called the 42-line Bible; Britannica additionally records “Mazarin Bible,” a name associated with an early copy described by bibliographers that was found in Cardinal Mazarin's library in Paris. The Gutenberg Museum in Mainz uses “B 42” as a short form. Evidence about the early printing trade includes the Helmasperger Notarial Instrument of 1455, which records a legal dispute between Gutenberg and Johann Fust. UNESCO's Memory of the World entry discusses this document alongside the Göttingen copy and a contemporary model book used for illumination, illustrating how surviving printed books and documents together inform research on the workshop and its reception.