Your correspondent will fully admit that today’s date is a bit of an educated guess. It’s hard to say exactly when Johannes Gutenberg made the first Bible printed on movable type available. (Oddly enough, the date wasn’t saved in print anywhere.) But there is some agreement among scholars that Gutenberg’s Bible might have been published in Mainz, Germany, on February 23, 1455 – 560 years ago today. One future pope wrote in a letter that he had seen pages of the Gutenberg Bible on display in Frankfurt that March. Considering that this would have been a 17-mile distance from Mainz (or approximately 400 million miles to people in the 15th century), dating the first publication to today is probably not too bad a guess.

After his discovery of movable type around 1439, Gutenberg had printed books using the technology. (The Chinese and Koreans had done the same earlier.) But nothing, East or West, had approached the scope and popularity of Gutenberg's Bible printing project. It’s estimated to have taken him three years to print about 180 editions of the Latin Vulgate, a project which had the blessing of the Catholic Church. The books were a labor of love, and the high standards of the ink and other materials have earned the Gutenberg Bible the reputation as one of the most beautiful books ever printed. Large margins allowed room for artists to add decorations, which could be as ornate as a buyer was willing, or able, to pay for.

Despite their high selling price (about three year’s wages for a clerk in some instances), the books sold out immediately and traveled across Europe. While expensive, the printed Bible was still more affordable than a handwritten copy.

The printing press set off a revolution in Europe. (If you’ve ever been to Epcot, you’ll know all about this part.) Print exploded across the continent in the decades following Gutenberg’s work. By the year 1500, 77 towns or cities in Italy alone boasted print shops. Scientists could share information accurately and easily. Errors introduced by scribes stopped plaguing copies of original works, and information in general was easily passed around. By the 1600’s, printing had become so cheap that the first newspapers started appearing.

Today 48 copies of Gutenberg’s Bible are known to exist, although only 21 are complete. Most of them are owned by university libraries and other scholarly institutions (like this one, on display at the University of Texas). The New York Public Library has what’s believed to be the first copy to have reached North America in the mid-19th century. A complete copy hasn’t been sold since 1978, but it’s estimated that such a sale would fetch at least $25 million today. So I guess we can forgive Gutenberg if he didn’t record the exact date of his Bible’s publication. His press was a little busy at the moment. Revolutionizing the entire Western world has its perks, but it probably doesn’t leave much time for anything else.

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/gutenbergbible/images/gutenberg_case.jpg