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Gutenberg Bible: the first major printed book
c. 1454–1455, Mainz· Council, creed or writing· Books & writings
Historical recordConfirmed by archaeology, outside sources or contemporary records.
The Latin Bible printed by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz around 1455, the first major book printed in Europe with movable metal type.
See it on the Bible & Christianity map →What it is
Gutenberg, a goldsmith, combined movable metal type, an oil-based ink and a press adapted from wine presses. His Bible, the Latin Vulgate in two volumes of 1,282 pages with 42 lines each, was printed about 1454–1455. Roughly 180 copies were made, some on vellum. The future Pope Pius II saw sample pages at Frankfurt in 1454 and praised how readable they were. In 1455 Gutenberg lost the business to his financier, Johann Fust, in a lawsuit.
Why it matters
Printing cut the cost of books dramatically: by 1500 an estimated 8 to 20 million books were in print. That made the Reformation's flood of pamphlets possible.
Think of it like
Like going from hand-copying every lease to running off hundreds on a copier: the cost per copy collapses.
Sources and history
Forty-nine copies survive, about 21 complete. Pius II's 1455 letter and the court record of Fust's lawsuit, the Helmasperger Instrument, document the printing.
Questions and debates
Gutenberg never signed it, so dates and the roles of Fust and Peter Schöffer are reconstructed. Korea's Jikji (1377) was printed with metal type earlier.
Connections (2)
▸Jerome's Latin Vulgate was the text printed in Gutenberg Bible: the first major printed bookHistorical record
The connection
Jerome's Latin Vulgate had been the Bible of the Western church for a thousand years, so it was the obvious book for Gutenberg's first big project, with ready buyers in monasteries, cathedrals and universities. Printing then made the Vulgate cheaper and more uniform than hand copies.
When and where
Mainz, Germany, about 1454–1455, printed by Johannes Gutenberg with Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer.
Historical evidence
The 49 surviving copies are the Latin Vulgate text, including Jerome's prefaces, in two volumes.
Questions and debates
Which manuscript the printers worked from is uncertain, and printed Vulgates varied until the Church issued its official Sixto-Clementine edition in 1592.
▸Gutenberg Bible: the first major printed book launched the print revolution that spread The Protestant ReformationHistorical record
The connection
Gutenberg's method spread fast: by 1500 there were presses in over 250 European towns. Luther's short German pamphlets, cheap and quick to print, became what historians often call the first mass media campaign. Unlike Wycliffe and Hus, he could reach a whole country within weeks.
When and where
Mainz, about 1455; from 1517 printers in Wittenberg, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Augsburg and Basel rushed out Luther's works.
Historical evidence
Surviving editions are well counted: Luther's writings ran to thousands of editions in his lifetime, by estimates a fifth to a third of German pamphlets in the early 1520s.
Questions and debates
Historians debate whether print caused the Reformation or amplified it; sermons, songs and woodcut images spread it to the many who could not read.