Gutenberg’s keen eye observed that certain items were being produced in large numbers, each identical to the other. Coins, for instance, were minted, and bullets were cast in metal. So why not print hundreds of identical pages of writing and then assemble the pages in numerical order into identical books? Which books? He thought of the Bible, a book so costly that only a privileged few had personal copies. Gutenberg aimed to produce large quantities of identical Bibles, making them much cheaper than handwritten copies without sacrificing any of their beauty. How was this to be done?

Printing Masterpiece

Gutenberg’s workshop, employing 15 to 20 people, completed the first printed Bible in 1455. About 180 copies were made. Each Bible had 1,282 pages, with 42 lines to a page, printed in two columns. The binding of the books—each Bible had two volumes—and the ornamental hand-painting of the headings and the first letter of each chapter were done later outside Gutenberg’s workshop.

Can we imagine how many pieces of type were needed to print the Bible? Each page contains about 2,600 characters. Assuming that Gutenberg had six typesetters, each of whom worked on three pages at once, they would have required some 46,000 pieces. We can readily understand that Gutenberg’s casting mold held the key to printing with movable letters.

People were astounded when they compared the Bibles: Each word was in the same position. That was impossible with handwritten documents. Günther S. Wegener writes that the 42-line Bible was of “such uniformity and symmetry, harmony and beauty, that printers throughout the ages have been struck with awe by this masterpiece.”

Financial Ruin

Fust, however, was less interested in making a masterpiece than in making money. The return on his investment was taking longer than expected. The partners became estranged, and in 1455—just as the Bibles were being completed—Fust foreclosed on the loans. Gutenberg was unable to repay the money and lost the ensuing court case. He was forced to surrender to Fust at least some of his printing equipment and the type for the Bibles. Fust opened his own printery together with Gutenberg’s skilled employee Peter Schöffer. Their business, Fust and Schöffer, reaped the good name that Gutenberg had earned and became the world’s first commercially successful printery.

Surviving Copies of the Gutenberg Bible

How many Gutenberg Bibles have survived? Until recently the number was believed to be 48—some of them incomplete—scattered around Europe and North America. One of the most elegant copies is a parchment Bible at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Then, in 1996, a sensational discovery was made: A further section of the Gutenberg Bible was discovered in a church archive in Rendsburg, Germany.—See Awake! of January 22, 1998, page 29.

How grateful we can be that the Bible is now affordable to anyone! Of course, that does not mean that we can go out and buy a 42-line Gutenberg! How much is one worth? The Gutenberg Museum in Mainz obtained a copy in 1978 for 3.7 million deutsche marks (today about $2 million). This Bible is now worth several times that amount.

What makes the Gutenberg Bible unique? Professor Helmut Presser, former director of the Gutenberg Museum, suggests three reasons. First, Gutenberg’s Bible was the first book to be printed in the West with movable letters. Second, it was the first Bible ever printed. Third, it is breathtakingly beautiful. Professor Presser writes that in the Gutenberg Bible, we see “Gothic writing at its absolute zenith.”