• BIBLE, LATIN. [Strasbourg: Johann Mentelin, not after 1460]

Collections:
  • Incunabula at Princeton
  • In Principio
  • Germany grouping
  • Collections Donated to Princeton University Library
  • The Scheide Library
  • Treasures of Rare Book Division
Curatorial Note:
  • 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. 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.
Uniform title:
  • Bible. Latin. Vulgate. 1460
Provenance:
  • Provenance: Reformed Franciscans, Saverne; Charles-Jérôme Cisternay du Fay; Karl Heinrich, Count Hoym; Pietro Antonio Bolongaro-Crevenna; Sir George Shuckburgh, Bart.; acquired May 2001.
Former owner:
  • Du Fay, Charles-Jerôme de Cisternay, 1662-1723
  • Hoym, Karl Heinrich, Graf von, 1694-1736
  • Bolongaro-Crevenna, Pietro Antonio, 1735-1792
  • Shuckburgh-Evelyn, George Augustus William, Sir, 1751-1804
Language:
  • Latin
Call number:
  • 53.8
Extent:
  • 427 leaves ; 39 x 28.7 cm (folio).
Format:
  • Book
Publisher:
  • [Strasbourg : Johann Mentelin, not after 1460].
Title sort:
  • Bible, Latin.
References:
  • Goff B-528.
  • Hain 3033*
  • BMC I 51 (IC.501)
  • GW 4203
Printer:
  • Mentelin, Johann, approximately 1410-1478
Created:
  • 1460-01-01T00:00:00Z
Date:
  • 1460
Identifier:
  • ark:/88435/js956f89t
Location:
  • WHS 53.8
Edm rights:
  • No Known Copyright
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