Early Mainz Printing Used as Binding Waste
The Gutenberg Bible held no particular significance for 16thand 17thcentury churchmen and scholars. Falling into disuse, these old Bibles were lost, stored away, or recycled as binding waste. This German law manual of 1666 (left), acquired by Princeton University in 2017, shows the handiwork of a 17thcentury bookbinder who cut up a discarded Gutenberg Bible to create an inexpensive vellum cover. Not until the 1700s did historians reconnect the 42-line Bible with Gutenberg and the origins of European printing.
The vellum strips glued inside the German binding of Princeton’s 1483 Venice edition of Horace (right), also acquired in 2017, are the only known Mainz Donatusfragments still intact within the binding that utilized them. Printed in the 1460s with the Gutenberg Bible types and one of Fust and Schoeffer’s Psalter initials, this copy of Donatusserved as a schoolbook for only a few years before it was discarded as binding waste.
![Durchleuchtigsten/ Hochgebornen Fürsten und Herren/ Herrn Friederichs/ Herrn Johannsens/ Herrn Lebrechts/ Herrn Johan Georgens/ Herrn Emanuels/ Herrn Victoris Amadei, Gebrüdern und Vettern Fürsten zu Anhalt/ Grafen zu Ascanien/ Herren zu Zerbst und Bernburg. Erneuerte und Verbesserte Landes und Procesz-Ordnung : [So geschehen den ein und zwantzigsten Novembris/ des 1665ten Jahres.]. and Derer Durchleuchtigsten/ Hochgebornen Fürsten und Herren/ Herrn Friederichs/ Herrn Johannsens/ Herrn Lebrechts/ Herrn Johan Georgens/ Herrn Emanuels/ Herrn Victoris Amadei, Gebrüdern und Vettern Fürsten zu Anhalt/ Grafen zu Ascanien/ Herren zu Zerbst und Bernburg. Erneuerte und Verbesserte Landes und Procesz-Ordnung : [So geschehen den ein und zwantzigsten Novembris/ des 1665ten Jahres.].](https://iiif-cloud.princeton.edu/iiif/2/0a%2F52%2Fee%2F0a52ee1c76e941009413a1ac8cc5e02f%2Fintermediate_file/full/!400,400/0/default.jpg)
Derer Durchleuchtigsten/ Hochgebornen Fürsten und Herren... Erneuerte und Verbesserte Landes und Procesz-Ordnung : [So geschehen den ein und zwantzigsten Novembris/ des 1665ten Jahres.].
The Gutenberg Bible held no particular significance for 16th and 17th century churchmen and scholars. Falling into disuse, these old Bibles were lost, stored away, or recycled as binding waste. This German law manual of 1666, acquired by Princeton University in 2017, shows the handiwork of a 17th-century bookbinder who cut up a discarded Gutenberg Bible to create an inexpensive vellum cover. Not until the 1700s did historians reconnect the 42-line Bible with Gutenberg and the origins of European printing.
![ARS MINOR [fragment]](https://iiif-cloud.princeton.edu/iiif/2/ed%2F83%2F0a%2Fed830a3cd181449ba94a56eb220cee13%2Fintermediate_file/full/!400,400/0/default.jpg)
ARS MINOR [fragment]
The vellum strips glued inside the German binding of Princeton’s 1483 Venice edition of Horace, also acquired in 2017, are the only known Mainz Donatus fragments still intact within the binding that utilized them. Printed in the 1460s with the Gutenberg Bible types and one of Fust and Schoeffer’s Psalter initials, this copy of Donatus served as a schoolbook for only a few years before it was discarded as binding waste.