I’m John McQuillan the associate curator printed books and bindings here at the Morgan library and Museum and this is the first volume in one of our copies of the Gutenberg Bible Johann Gutenberg was trained as a Goldsmith from Mainz Germany he worked the metal worker and we think that experience trying to punch out tiny little metal tin mirrors that he came up with the idea of individual letters

but history record to him doing is inventing movable type in Europe and this is the first really major and exceptional production of good and birds printing press and European topography printed in about fourteen fifty-four development of type of graphic printing in Europe revolutionized European information learning literacy Gutenberg printed about 180 copies of the Bible only about 48 are extant today and more or less complete form when the book came off the press only the black letters were printed anything in color had to be added later by hand by whoever purchased the printed sheets so every copy has decorations Pacific to the first owner so the decoration of every copy is different this copy

you can see a blue initial I here for the beginning of in principio in the beginning the first words of Genesis and some sort of marginal filigree decoration that decoration is specific to one single Monastery outside of worms Germany so we know that they own this copy of the Gutenberg Bible

when this complete copy came on the market in 1911 Morgan was adamant that he acquired for his collection and he and his library and belt across the green work closely with a book dealer in England to ensure that this copy made it to the Morgan Library

we always have one of the volumes of the Gutenberg Bible on display so the public always has visual access to one of the treasures of Morgan’s collection in the library looking back at one of the first items of printing kind of really brings that timeline into focus and you kind of understand a history of five hundred years and where we were and where we are now

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