[INCUNABLE] A leaf from the Gutenberg Bible

[Mainz : Johannes Gutenberg, circa 1454-55]. Single folio leaf. 390 x 286 mm, printed on recto and verso, black gothic lettering of forty-two lines in double columns, large two-line initial letter rubricated in red; light foxing, ox head watermark clearly visible at the centre of the leaf, neat paper reinforcement along margin (probably from when included in the leaf book A Noble Fragment), a fine example housed in a card chemise and protective custom clamshell box, lettered in gilt.

A LEAF FROM THE FIRST WESTERN BOOK PRINTED BY MOVABLE TYPE, THE GUTENBERG BIBLE.

Leaf 68 of the Gutenberg Bible, comprising Numbers 7.38 – 8.12 of the Christian Old Testament, the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah.

Significantly, this leaf includes the distinctive ox or bull’s head watermark clearly visible right in the middle of the page. This is one of three watermarks used in the Bible, the others being a bunch of grapes and a walking ox. The paper itself was imported from Caselle in Piedmont, Northern Italy, one of the main paper-making centres in the 15th century.

“[The Gutenberg Bible] has never been surpassed. Of all the arts, printing at its birth reached perfection more nearly than any other.”

 – A. Edward Newton

The Gutenberg Bible is perhaps the most famous and important book in the world, due to its being the first complete book printed in Western culture using the radical technology of movable pieces of type. The introduction of this form of printing ushered in an information revolution whose impacts – both direct and indirect – on literacy, education, humanism and, ultimately, democracy, were incalculable.

As the first of all first editions, the Gutenberg Bible represents in some sense the “holy grail” of early printed books. Complete examples are now unprocurable in the marketplace (all being held in public collections); yet a single leaf, extracted from an incomplete copy of the Bible, captivates the imagination when one contemplates the permanent significance this revolution of the Renaissance had for all humanity.

“Its printers were competing in the market hitherto supplied by the producers of high-class manuscripts. The design of the book and the layout of the book were therefore based on the book-hand and manuscript design of the day, and a very high standard of press-work was required – and obtained – to enable the new mechanical product to compete successfully with its hand-produced rivals. Standards were set in quality of paper and blackness of ink, in design and professional skill, which the printers of later generations have found difficult to maintain.” (Printing and the Mind of Man).

Only forty-eight copies of the Gutenberg Bible are known to have survived, of which twenty-one are complete.

The Gutenberg Bible is the Vulgate – the Latin version of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament that is largely based on the translations made by Saint Jerome in the late 4th and early 5th century.

Provenance: 

This leaf is almost certainly an example of a ‘Noble Fragment’, originated with an imperfect copy of the Gutenberg Bible which had previously formed part of the collections of Carl Theodor von Pfalz-Sulzbach (1724-99), Prince Elector, Count-Palatine and Duke of Bavaria and Sulzbach (the coat-of-arms of Carl Theodor and his first wife Maria Elisabeth was stamped on the previous binding), the Hofbibliothek at Mannheim, and subsequently the Royal Library at Munich (soon after 1799). In 1832 it was sold as a duplicate – for about 350 florins – to the Hon. Robert Curzon, Baron Zouche (1810-1873), later famous as the author of Visits to Monasteries of the Levant (1849), who was in Munich at the time (see White); thence it was passed on to his descendants. It was sold at auction by Curzon’s great-niece, 17th Baroness Zouche, in 1920 (Sotheby’s, 9 November, lot 70, £2750) to the English-born New York dealer Joseph Sabin, from whom it was acquired by another New York dealer, Gabriel Wells. Although the Bible contained both the Old and New Testaments, it was missing 50 out of an original 643 leaves and a good portion of its illuminations had been excised. Wells decided to take the Bible apart entirely, selling or donating sections and individual leaves to the general public. This allowed institutions to acquire leaves for teaching purposes or to complete their own copies of the Bible, and gave individual buyers a chance to own a piece of bibliographic history.

The New York Times commented that Wells was “spreading the Gospel among the rich.” Most of the individual leaves were slip-cased in leather portfolios and accompanied by an essay Wells commissioned from the scholar and bibliophile Alfred Edward Newton titled ‘A Noble Fragment, Being a Leaf of the Gutenberg Bible (1450-1455).’

As noted by Dr. Eric White, Scheide Librarian and Assistant University Librarian for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Princeton University Library, ‘The “Noble Fragments” are identifiable by their neatly alternating red and blue lombard headlines, smaller initials, and chapter numerals. These were the work of a skilled artisan, probably working in Mainz, who also rubricated The Gutenberg Bible now at the Roland’s Library in Manchester’. – Editio princeps : A History of the Gutenberg Bible, Turnhout, Belgium : Harvey Miller Publishers, 2017, p. 135. The rubrication of this example aligns with other examples of Gutenberg Bible leaves we have handled, originating from copies presented by Wells as A Noble Fragment.