“There was near Mainz a certain Johann surnamed Gutenberg, who was the very first man to devise the art of printing by which books were not written, as they used to be, with reed or pen, but by metal characters, and that with speed, elegance, and beauty.”

From the first printed notice- Gasparino Barzizza’s Orthographia, Paris 1471- naming Gutenberg as the “inventor” of printing.

The first major printed book in Europe, the Gutenberg Bible, takes its name from Johann Gutenberg, a native of Mainz, Germany, who began experimenting with casting movable or reusable type in the 1440s. With financial backing from Johann Fust, a wealthy Mainz lawyer, Gutenberg and his workmen produced about 180 copies of the large folio Bible; about a quarter of the total were printed on vellum (fine parchment made from calfskin) and the remainder on paper imported from northern Italy. Each copy consists of nearly 1300 pages, measuring approximately 16 by 12 inches (400 x 300 mm). A contemporary account by a visitor to Mainz indicates that the book was nearly ready in October 1454 and available for sale by March 1455.

The Bible was intended to look like a manuscript of the 15th century and Gutenberg designed his type to resemble the gothic textura or black letter script used by scribes in Northern Europe. The purchaser of this first printed book would have received a stack of folded pages with only the black letters printed. The addition of rubrication (red lettering) and illumination (color illustration) was the responsibility of the owner. Additionally, the owner was responsible for having the Bible bound. For this reason, the illustrations and bindings of the forty-eight surviving copies vary.

Although the cost of the Bible must have been expensive even for wealthy individuals, the new technology spread rapidly and printers began producing smaller printed books from cheaper materials. By the end of the fifteenth century, hundreds of book titles were being produced each year. The rapid spread of knowledge made possible by Gutenberg's printing press contributed to the Renaissance, advances in Science, exploration and mapmaking, and the Protestant Reformation. Gutenberg was chosen by Time Magazine as the "Man of the Millennium" for without the press none of the other accomplishments of the past millennium could have been realized.

Gift of Mrs. Josephine Guzzardi