The printed word esthetically equals exemplary handwriting

The printed word and exquisite illustrations combine to make the Gutenberg Bible the greatest celebrity in the history of book arts. Forty-nine copies of the two-volume Latin Bible are extant. In the 15th century Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz invented printing from movable, reproducible type, a development that transformed the face of printing and enabled the creation of the forty-two–line Bible. Gutenberg’s invention made it possible to replicate the work of scribes who for generations had meticulously copied texts by hand. After being printed, pages were embellished by artists who painted marvellous creations along side the type, resulting in pages that seem almost to breathe.

Our journal covers reproduce facsimile versions of illuminated pages created by Gisela Maschmann, who modelled her miniature paintings on a volume of Gutenberg’s ecclesiastic masterwork housed in Berliner Staatsbibliothek.

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