Thirteen Interesting Facts about the Gutenberg Bible

February 4, 2010 on 12:01 am | In Elise, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Trusting Destiny releases February 9. The history of the Gutenberg figures in the story – along with a stone that might – or might not – be from the Breastplate of Aaron.

I thought I might give you a little taste of my research, so here are 13 facts about the Gutenberg Bible.

1. There are several variations which are all considered Gutenberg Bibles. Some are printed on vellum (45) and some on paper (135).

2. The first sheets printed were actually passed through twice – once with black ink, once with red – in a process called rubrication. The remaining sheets were printed only with the black ink.

3. Illumination and decoration were added by hand to the printed pages, so no two Gutenbergs are exactly alike.

4. Gutenberg had to invent a new, oil-based ink for his print process.

5. The Gutenberg has nearly 300 master characters of type, representing upper and lower case letters, ligatures, and punctuation marks.

6. Ligatures are characters commonly run together in the type. Much like the modern Æ character.

7. Finished copies of the Bible were available in 1454 or 1455.

8. The pages do not all have the same number of lines. The first pages printed had 40 lines of text. A few copies of one page have 41 lines, and the balance have 42 lines.

9. The Bible, though cheaper than a manuscript Bible, was a considerable expense. Consequently, only one is known to have been in private hands in the 15th century.

10. There are forty-eight known surviving copies, 21 of which are complete.

11. There are five known complete copies in the United States. They are owned by The Ransom Center at the University of Texas, The Library of Congress, Harvard University, Yale University, and the Pierpont Morgan Library.

12. Unsurprisingly, Germany is home to the most copies of the Gutenberg. There are 12 total copies, 4 complete and the balance incomplete.

13. The UK has the most complete copies – 7. Two of these are at the British Library in London, one is at the National Library of Scotland, one each at Eton, Cambridge and Oxford, and one at the John Rylands Library in Manchester.

And now that you know so much, you can check my research in Trusting Destiny.