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{{Short description|Earliest major book printed in Europe}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:Gutenberg Bible}}

[[File:Gutenberg Bible, Lenox Copy, New York Public Library, 2009. Pic 01.jpg|thumb|Gutenberg Bible of the [[New York Public Library]]; purchased by [[James Lenox]] in 1847, it was the first Gutenberg Bible to be acquired by a United States citizen.]]
[[File:Bible de Gutenberg conservée à la BNF Richelieu.jpg|thumb|The copy of the ''Gutenberg Bible'' held at the [[Bibliothèque nationale de France]]]]

The '''Gutenberg Bible''', also known as the '''42-line Bible''', the '''Mazarin Bible''' or the '''B42''', was the earliest major [[book]] printed in Europe using mass-produced metal [[movable type]]. It marked the start of the "[[Printing Revolution|Gutenberg Revolution]]" and the age of printed books in the West. The book is valued and revered for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities<ref name="Davies" /> and its historical significance. 

The Gutenberg Bible is an edition of the Latin [[Vulgate]] printed in the 1450s by [[Johannes Gutenberg]] in [[Mainz]] ([[Holy Roman Empire]]), in present-day [[Germany]]. Out of either 158 or 180 copies that were originally printed, 49 survive in at least substantial portion, 21 of them in entirety; of these, the copy with the earliest visible print date is marked as 15 August 1456.<ref name=Aug1456/> They are thought to be among the world's most valuable books, although no complete copy has been sold since 1978.<ref name="MSNBC" /><ref name="Luxist.com" /> In March 1455, the future [[Pope Pius II]] wrote that he had seen pages from the Gutenberg Bible, displayed in [[Frankfurt am Main|Frankfurt]] to promote the edition.

The [[36-line Bible]], said to be the second printed Bible, is also sometimes referred to as a Gutenberg Bible, but may be the work of another printer.<ref name="bl">British Library, [http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/prbooks/earprintbib/earlyprintedbiblesinlatin/earlyprintedbibleslatin.html "Early Printed Bibles - In Latin 1454 onwards"]</ref>

==Text==
[[File:Gutenberg Bible at Yale.jpg|thumb|Gutenberg Bible in the [[Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library]] at [[Yale University]] in [[New Haven, Connecticut]]]] 
The Gutenberg Bible is an edition of the [[Vulgate]], a Latin translation of the [[Hebrew Bible]] ([[Old Testament]]) and the Greek [[New Testament]] by St [[Jerome]]. The text contains [[emendation (textual)|emendation]]s from the [[Paris Bible|Parisian Bible]] tradition, and further divergences.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/textbible.html |title=The text of the Bible |author=<!--staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=<!--no date apparent--> |website=bl.uk |publisher=[[British Library]] |access-date=6 November 2016 |archive-date=25 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161025175241/http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/textbible.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Printing history ==
While it is unlikely that any of Gutenberg's early publications would bear his name, the initial expense of press equipment and materials and of the work to be done before the Bible was ready for sale suggests that he may have started with more lucrative texts, including several religious documents, a German poem, and some editions of [[Aelius Donatus]]'s ''[[Ars Grammatica]]'', a popular Latin grammar school book.<ref name="Man">{{cite book |last=Man |first=John |title=Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words |publisher=John Wiley and Sons, Inc. |location=New York |isbn=0-471-21823-5 |year=2002 |url=https://archive.org/details/gutenberghowonem00john }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Klooster, John W.|title=Icons of invention : the makers of the modern world from Gutenberg to Gates|date=2009|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=978-0-313-34744-3|location=Santa Barbara, Calif.|oclc=647903993}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Gowan|first1=Al|last2=Meggs|first2=Philip B.|last3=Ashwin|first3=Clive|date=1984|title=A History of Graphic Design|journal=Design Issues|volume=1|issue=1|pages=87|doi=10.2307/1511549|jstor=1511549|issn=0747-9360}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Type to Print: The Book & The Type Specimen Book | first=Aelius|last= Donatus |url=https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/type_to_print/gutenberg/donatus |website=Columbia University Libraries Online Exhibitions |access-date=17 May 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Klumpenhouwer |first1=Samuel J. |title=The Grammar and the Bible |url=https://circeinstitute.org/blog/the-grammar-and-the-bible/#:~:text=The%20first%20book%20printed%20by%20metal%20movable,and%20commentaries%20on%20Latin%20texts%2C%20particularly%20those |website=CiRCE Institute |date=7 March 2025 |access-date=17 May 2025}}</ref>

Preparation of the Bible probably began soon after 1450, and the first finished copies were available in 1454 or 1455.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/gutenberg/html/4.html |title=The Gutenberg Bible |work=utexas.edu |access-date=2007-03-28 |archive-date=2013-01-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130128035330/http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/gutenberg/html/4.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> It is not known exactly how long the Bible took to print. The first precisely datable printing is Gutenberg's [[31-line Indulgence]] which certainly existed by 22 October 1454.<ref>{{cite book |page=11 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rXSAvawdIZIC&pg=PA11 |title=Early Printed Books as Material Objects: Proceedings of the Conference Organized by the IFLA Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Munich, 19–21 August 2009 |isbn=978-3-11-025530-0 |last1=Wagner |first1=Bettina |last2=Reed |first2=Marcia |date=2010-12-23| publisher=Walter de Gruyter }}</ref>

Gutenberg made three significant changes during the printing process.<ref name="3Phases">British Library, [http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/threephases.html Three phases in the printing process] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111014033935/http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/threephases.html |date=2011-10-14 }} accessed 4 July 2009</ref> Each sheet of paper was dampened before printing to improve ink absorption. It was then pressed onto an inked surface consisting of moveable type. After each sheet was printed, the type was re-inked, and the process repeated until the entire print run was completed. Once finished, the type was cleaned and redistributed into type cases for future use. This method is a form of relief printing.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kent |first=Philip G. |date=2021-01-02 |title=The Oxford illustrated history of the book |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/24750158.2021.1875793 |journal=Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association |volume=70 |issue=1 |pages=94–95 |doi=10.1080/24750158.2021.1875793 |issn=2475-0158|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[File:Gutenberg Bible, Lenox Copy, New York Public Library, 2009. Pic 02.jpg|thumb|Spine of the Lenox copy]]

Some time later, after more sheets had been printed, the number of lines per page was increased from 40 to 42, presumably to save paper. Therefore, pages 1 to 9 and pages 256 to 265, presumably the first ones printed, have 40 lines each. Page 10 has 41, and from there on the 42 lines appear. The increase in line number was achieved by decreasing the [[interline spacing]], rather than increasing the printed area of the page. Finally, the print run was increased, necessitating resetting those pages which had already been printed. The new sheets were all reset to 42 lines per page. Consequently, there are two distinct settings in [[Folio (printing)|folios]] 1–32 and 129–158 of volume I and folios 1–16 and 162 of volume II.<ref name="3Phases" /><ref>British Library, [http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/flash4.html The differences in line lengths per page] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090907042016/http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/flash4.html |date=2009-09-07 }}: pictures showing differences between the Keio copy (40 lines per page) and the British Library copy (42 lines per page) in Genesis 1. Accessed 10 July 2009</ref>

The most reliable information about the Bible's date comes from a letter. In March 1455, the future [[Pope Pius II]] wrote that he had seen pages from the Gutenberg Bible, being displayed to promote the edition, in Frankfurt.<ref>British Library, [http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/bibleyears.html Gutenberg's life: the years of the Bible] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200918015731/http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/bibleyears.html |date=2020-09-18 }} accessed 10 July 2009</ref> It is not known how many copies were printed, with the 1455 letter citing sources for both 158 and 180 copies. Scholars today think that examination of surviving copies suggests that somewhere between 160 and 185 copies were printed, with about three-quarters on paper and the others on [[vellum]].<ref name="Long lost">{{cite journal |author=White, Eric Marshall |year=2002 |title=Long Lost Leaves from Gutenberg's Mons-Trier II Bible |journal=Gutenberg Jahrbuch |volume=77 |pages=19–36}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Lane Ford, Margaret |chapter=Deconstruction and Reconstruction: Detecting and Interpreting Sophisticated Copies |pages=291–304 |editor1=Wagner, Bettina |editor2=Reed, Marcia |title=Early Printed Books as Material Objects: Proceedings of the Conference Organized by the Ifla Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Munich, 19–21 August 2009 |publisher=De Gruyter Sur |year=2010 |isbn=978-3-11-025324-5}}</ref>

==The production process: ''Das Werk der Bücher''==
[[File:Gutenberg Bible.jpg|thumb|A [[vellum]] copy of the Gutenberg Bible owned by the U.S. [[Library of Congress]], on display at the [[Thomas Jefferson Building]] in [[Washington, D.C.]]]]

In a legal paper, written after completion of the Bible, Johannes Gutenberg refers to the process as ''Das Werk der Bücher'' ("the work of the books"). He had introduced the [[printing press]] to Europe and created the technology to make printing with [[movable type]]s finally efficient enough to facilitate the mass production of entire books.<ref>British Library, [http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/background.html Gutenberg Bible: background] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224195907/https://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/background.html |date=2021-02-24 }} accessed 10 July 2009</ref>

Many book-lovers have commented on the high standards achieved in the production of the Gutenberg Bible, some describing it as one of the most beautiful books ever printed.  The quality of both the ink and other materials and the printing itself have been noted.<ref name="Davies">{{cite book |last=Davies |first=Martin |title=The Gutenberg Bible |publisher=British Library |year=1996 |isbn=0-7123-0492-4}}</ref>

===Pages===
[[File:Gutenberg bible Old Testament Epistle of St Jerome.jpg|thumb|left|First page of the first volume: the [[Jerome's epistle to Paulinus (Gutenberg Bible preface)|epistle of St Jerome to Paulinus]] from the [[University of Texas]] copy. The page has 40 lines.]]

The paper size is 'double folio', with two pages printed on each side (four pages per sheet). After printing the paper was folded once to the size of a single page. Typically, five of these folded sheets (ten leaves, or twenty printed pages) were combined to a single [[Section (bookbinding)|physical section]], called a [[quinternion]], that could then be bound into a book. Some sections, however, had as few as four leaves or as many as twelve leaves.<ref>British Library, [http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/gatherings.html Making the Bible: the gatherings] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080607124942/http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/gatherings.html |date=2008-06-07 }} accessed 10 July 2009</ref>
[[File:Gutenberg Bible on display at the U.S. Library of Congress.jpg|alt=Photo of the Gutenberg Bible behind display case.|thumb|Gutenberg Bible on [https://guides.loc.gov/gutenberg/copy-history display] at the U.S. Library of Congress]]
The 42-line Bible was printed on the size of paper known as 'Royal'.<ref>Paul Needham, 'Format and Paper Size in Fifteenth-century Printing', In: ''Materielle Aspekte in der Inkunabelforschung'', Wiesbaden, 2017, pp. 59–108: p. 83.</ref> A full sheet of Royal paper measures {{cvt|42|x|60|cm}} and a single untrimmed folio leaf measures {{cvt|42|x|30|cm}}.<ref>George Gordon and William Noel, 'The Needham Calculator', 2017: http://www.needhamcalculator.net/needham_calculator1.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180826220049/http://www.needhamcalculator.net/needham_calculator1.pdf |date=2018-08-26 }}. Accessed 26 August 2018.</ref> There have been attempts to claim that the book was printed on larger paper measuring {{cvt|44.5|x|30.7|cm}},<ref>Man, John (2002). ''Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words'', New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. {{ISBN|0-471-21823-5}}.</ref> but this assertion is contradicted by the dimensions of existing copies. For example, the leaves of the copy in the [[Bodleian Library, Oxford]], measure {{cvt|40|×|28.6|cm}}.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://incunables.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/record/B-237. |title=Accessed 26 August 2018. |access-date=26 August 2018 |archive-date=15 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200915015337/http://incunables.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/record/B-237. |url-status=live }}</ref> This is typical of other folio Bibles printed on Royal paper in the fifteenth century.<ref>Paul Needham, 'Format and Paper Size in Fifteenth-century Printing', In: ''Materielle Aspekte in der Inkunabelforschung'', Wiesbaden, 2017, p. 83.</ref> Most fifteenth-century printing papers have a width-to-height ratio of 1:1.4 (e.g. 30:42&nbsp;cm) which, mathematically, is a ratio of [[Lichtenberg Ratio|1 to the square root of 2]] or, simply, <math display="inline">\sqrt{2}</math>. Many suggest that this ratio was chosen to match the so-called [[Golden Ratio]], <math display="inline">\tfrac{1+\sqrt{5}}{2}</math>, of 1:1.6; in fact the ratios are, plainly, not at all similar (equating to a difference of about 12 per cent). The ratio of 1:1.4 was a long established one for medieval paper sizes.<ref>Neil Harris, 'The Shape of Paper', subsection 'Sheet-size and the Bologna Stone', in: ''Paper and Watermarks as Bibliographical Evidence'', Lyon, Institut d'histoire du livre, 2017, http://ihl.enssib.fr/en/paper-and-watermarks-as-bibliographical-evidence {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180826183015/http://ihl.enssib.fr/en/paper-and-watermarks-as-bibliographical-evidence |date=2018-08-26 }}.</ref> A single complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible has 1,288 pages (4×322 = 1288) (usually bound in two volumes); with four pages per folio-sheet, 322 sheets of paper are required per copy.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/gutenbergbible/facts/#top |title=Fast Facts: The Gutenberg Bible |work=utexas.edu |access-date=2014-03-26 |archive-date=2019-04-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190416211257/https://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/gutenbergbible/facts/#top |url-status=dead }}</ref> The Bible's paper consists of [[linen]] fibers and is thought to have been imported from [[Caselle Torinese|Caselle]] in [[Piedmont, Italy]] based on the [[watermark]]s present throughout the volume.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/paper.html|title=Gutenberg Bible: Making the Bible – the Paper|last=Wight|first=C.|website=www.bl.uk|access-date=2020-04-08|archive-date=2020-08-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200810083459/https://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/paper.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Ink===
In Gutenberg's time, inks used by [[scribe]]s to produce manuscripts were water-based. Gutenberg developed an oil-based ink that would better adhere to his metal type. His ink was primarily carbon, but also had a high metallic content, with copper, lead, and titanium predominating.<ref>British Library, [http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/ink.html Making the Bible: the ink] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070911124232/http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/ink.html |date=2007-09-11 }} accessed 18 October 2009.</ref> Head of collections at the [[British Library]], Kristian Jensen, described it thus: "if you look [at the pages of The Gutenberg Bible] closely you will see this is a very shiny surface. When you write you use a water-based ink, you put your pen into it and it runs off. Now if you print that's exactly what you don't want. One of Gutenberg's inventions was an ink which wasn't ink, it's a [[varnish]]. So what we call printer's ink is actually a varnish, and that means it sticks to its surface."<ref>BBC Radio 4 programme "Gutenberg: In the Beginning Was the Printer", first broadcast 21-10-2014</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://bav.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/kristian-jensen-on-the-gutenberg-bible |title=Kristian Jensen on the Gutenberg Bible &#124; Polonsky Foundation Digitization Project |access-date=2022-11-26 |archive-date=2022-11-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221126162244/http://bav.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/kristian-jensen-on-the-gutenberg-bible |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Type===
Each unique character requires a piece of master type in order to be replicated. Given that each [[Letter (alphabet)|letter]] has uppercase and lowercase forms, and the number of various punctuation marks and [[typographic ligature|ligatures]] (e.g., "{{not a typo|[[Fi (ligature)|ﬁ]]}}" for the letter sequence "fi", commonly used in writing), the Gutenberg Bible needed a set of 290 master characters. It seems probable that six pages, containing 15,600 characters altogether, would be set at any one moment.<ref name="Man" />

===Type style===
The Gutenberg Bible is printed in the [[blackletter]] type styles that would become known as [[Textualis#Textualis|Textualis (Textura)]] and [[Schwabacher]]. The name ''Textura'' refers to the texture of the printed page: straight vertical strokes combined with horizontal lines, giving the impression of a woven structure. Gutenberg already used the technique of [[Justification (typesetting)|justification]], that is, creating a vertical, not indented, alignment at the left and right-hand sides of the column. To do this, he used various methods, including using characters of narrower widths, adding extra spaces around punctuation, and varying the widths of spaces around words.<ref>Television presentation, "The Machine that Made Us", presenter: Stephen Fry</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.typografi.org/justering/gut_hz/gutenberg_hz_english.html |title=InDesign, the hz-program and Gutenberg's secret |access-date=2009-10-07 |archive-date=2012-12-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121224004954/http://www.typografi.org/justering/gut_hz/gutenberg_hz_english.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Rubrication, illumination and binding===
[[File:Gutenberg detail.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|left|Detail showing both [[rubrication]] (text in red) and [[Illuminated manuscript|illumination]]]]

Initially the rubrics—the headings before each book of the Bible—were printed, but this practice was quickly abandoned at an unknown date, and gaps were left for [[rubrication]] to be added by hand. A guide of the text to be added to each page, printed for use by rubricators, survives.<ref name="Kapr">{{cite book |last=Kapr |first=Albert |title=Johann Gutenberg: The Man and His Invention |publisher=Scolar Press |year=1996 |isbn=1-85928-114-1}}</ref>

The spacious margin allowed [[Illuminated manuscript|illuminated]] decoration to be added by hand. The amount of decoration presumably depended on how much each buyer could or would pay. Some copies were never decorated.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/paperdecoration.html |title=Gutenberg Bible: The Copy on Paper – the Decoration |work=bl.uk |access-date=2008-10-19 |archive-date=2009-03-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090301104118/http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/paperdecoration.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The place of decoration can be known or inferred for about 30 of the surviving copies. It is possible that 13 of these copies received their decoration in Mainz, but others were worked on as far away as London.<ref name="Estes">{{cite book |last=Estes |first=Richard |title=The 550th Anniversary Pictorial Census of the Gutenberg Bible |publisher=Gutenberg Research Center |year=2005 |page=151}}</ref> The [[vellum]] Bibles were more expensive, and perhaps for this reason tend to be more highly decorated, although the vellum copy in the British Library is completely undecorated.<ref name="Jensen">{{cite book |author=Jensen, Kristian |chapter=Printing the Bible in the fifteenth century: devotion, philology and commerce |pages=115–38 |editor=Jensen, Kristian |title=Incunabula and their readers: printing, selling and using books in the fifteenth century |publisher=British Library |year=2003 |isbn=0-7123-4769-0}}</ref>

There has been speculation that the "[[Master of the Playing Cards]]", an unidentified engraver who has been called "the first personality in the history of engraving,"<ref>{{cite book |title=Fifteenth Century Engravings of Northern Europe |last=Shestack |first=Alan |year=1967 |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=National Gallery of Art |lccn=67029080 }}</ref> was partly responsible for the illumination of the copy held by the [[Princeton University]] library. However, all that can be said for certain is that the same model book was used for some of the illustrations in this copy and for some of the Master's illustrated playing cards.<ref name="vb">{{cite journal |last1=van Buren |first1=Anne H. |last2=Edmunds |first2=Sheila |date=March 1974 |title=Playing Cards and Manuscripts: Some Widely Disseminated Fifteenth Century Model Sheets |journal=The Art Bulletin |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=12–30 |doi=10.1080/00043079.1974.10789835 |issn=0004-3079 |jstor=3049193}}</ref>

Although many Gutenberg Bibles have been rebound over the years, nine copies retain fifteenth-century [[Bookbinding|bindings]]. Most of these copies were bound in either [[Mainz]] or [[Erfurt]].<ref name="Estes" /> Most copies were divided into two volumes, the first volume ending with [[Psalms|The Book of Psalms]]. Copies on vellum were heavier and for this reason were sometimes bound in three or four volumes.<ref name="Davies" />

==Early owners==
[[File:Gutenberg Bible WDL4102.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|Binding of the copy at the Bavarian State Library, one of the few Gutenberg Bibles to retain their original bindings.]]

The Bible seems to have sold out immediately, with some initial purchases as far away as England and possibly Sweden and Hungary.<ref name="Davies" /><ref name="waste">{{cite book |author=White, Eric Marshall |chapter=The Gutenberg Bibles that Survive as Binder's Waste |pages=21–35 |editor=Wagner, Bettina |editor2=Reed, Marcia |title=Early Printed Books as Material Objects: Proceedings of the Conference Organized by the Ifla Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Munich, 19–21 August 2009 |publisher=De Gruyter Sur |year=2010 |isbn=978-3-11-025324-5}}</ref> At least some copies are known to have sold for 30 [[florin]]s (equivalent to about {{convert|100|g|disp=or}} of [[gold]]), which was about three years' wages for a [[clerk]].<ref>{{cite book |title=In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture |publisher=Anchor Books |author=McGrath, Alister |year=2001 |pages=15 |isbn=0-385-72216-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=A History of Science in Society: From Philosophy to Utility |publisher=Broadview Press |author1=Cormack, Lesley B.|author1-link= Lesley Cormack |author2=Ede, Andrew |year=2004 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofscience0000edea/page/95 95] |isbn=1-55111-332-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofscience0000edea/page/95 }}</ref> Although this made them significantly cheaper than manuscript Bibles, most students, priests or other people of moderate income would not have been able to afford them. It is assumed that most were sold to monasteries, universities and particularly wealthy individuals.<ref name="Kapr" /> At present only one copy is known to have been privately owned in the fifteenth century. Some are known to have been used for communal readings in monastery refectories; others may have been for display rather than use, and a few were certainly used for study.<ref name="Davies" /> Kristian Jensen suggests that many copies were bought by wealthy and pious laymen for donation to religious institutions.<ref name="Jensen" />

==Influence on later Bibles==
The Gutenberg Bible had a profound effect on the history of the printed book. Textually, it also had an influence on future editions of the Bible.  It provided the model for several later editions, including the [[36 Line Bible]], [[Johannes Mentelin|Mentelin's]] Latin Bible, and the first and third [[Heinrich Eggestein|Eggestein]] Bibles. The third Eggestein Bible was set from the copy of the Gutenberg Bible now in [[Cambridge University Library]]. The Gutenberg Bible also had an influence on the [[Pope Clement VIII|Clementine]] edition of the Vulgate commissioned by the Papacy in the late sixteenth century.<ref name="Needham">{{cite book |author=Needham, Paul |chapter=The Changing Shape of the Vulgate Bible in Fifteenth-Century Printing Shops |pages=[https://archive.org/details/bibleasbook00saen/page/53 53–70] |editor=Saenger, Paul |editor2=Van Kampen, Kimberly |title=The Bible as Book:the First Printed Editions |publisher=British Library |year=1999 |isbn=0-7123-4601-5 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/bibleasbook00saen/page/53 }}</ref><ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite book |author=Needham, Paul |chapter=Copy Specifics in the Printing Shop |pages=9–20 |editor=Wagner, Bettina |editor2=Reed, Marcia |title=Early Printed Books as Material Objects: Proceedings of the Conference Organized by the Ifla Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Munich, 19–21 August 2009 |publisher=De Gruyter Sur |year=2010 |isbn=978-3-11-025324-5}}</ref>

==Forgeries==
[[File:42-zeilige Gutenbergbibel, Teil 2, Blatt 36.tif|thumb|Fragment of the Gutenberg Bible that was used as [[binding waste]], now held by the [[Basel University Library]].]]
Joseph Martini, a New York book dealer, found that the Gutenberg Bible held by the library of the [[General Theological Seminary]] in New York had a forged leaf, carrying part of Chapter 14, all of Chapter 15, and part of Chapter 16 of the [[Book of Ezekiel]]. It was impossible to tell when the leaf had been inserted into the volume. It was replaced in the fall of 1953, when a patron donated the corresponding leaf from a defective Gutenberg second volume which was being broken up and sold in parts.<ref name="GeneralTheologicalSeminary">St. Mark's Library (General Theological Seminary). The Gutenberg Bible of the General Theological Seminary. New York: St. Mark's Library, the General Theological Seminary, 1963.</ref> This made it "the first imperfect Gutenberg Bible ever restored to completeness."<ref name="GeneralTheologicalSeminary" /> In 1978, this copy was sold for US$2.2 million to the {{lang|de|[[Württembergische Landesbibliothek]]|italic=no}} in [[Stuttgart]], Germany.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.clausenbooks.com/gutenbergcensus.htm |title=Gutenberg Bible Census |access-date=2007-06-01 |archive-date=2011-07-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708163336/http://www.clausenbooks.com/gutenbergcensus.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Surviving copies==
{{As of |2009}}, 49 Gutenberg Bibles are known to exist, but of these only 25 are complete. Others have pages or even whole volumes missing. In addition, there are a substantial number of fragments, some as small as individual leaves, which are likely to represent about another 16 copies. Many of these fragments have survived because [[Binding waste|they were used as part of the binding of later books]].<ref name="waste" />

===Substantially complete copies===
{{collapse top|List of substantially complete copies}}
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
! Country
! Holding institution
! data-sort-type="number" | [[Ilona Hubay|Hubay]] no.<ref name="Doheny">{{cite book |author=Estelle Betzold Doheny |title=The Estelle Doheny Collection: Fifteenth-century books, including the Gutenberg Bible |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XaVMAAAAYAAJ |volume=1 |year=1987 |publisher=Christie, Manson & Woods International |pages=23–}}</ref><ref name="CERL">{{cite web |publisher=[[Consortium of European Research Libraries]] |title=ISTC (Incunabula Shorttitle Catalogue) |website=AMPLE |date=June 5, 2018 |url=https://data.cerl.org/istc/ib00526000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180605210118/https://data.cerl.org/istc/ib00526000 |archive-date=June 5, 2018 |url-status=live |access-date=June 5, 2018}}</ref>
! Length
! Material
! Notes and external links
|-
| Austria&nbsp;(1)
| [[Austrian National Library]], [[Vienna]]
| 27
| complete
| paper
| One of only two copies to contain the "tabula rubricarum" (index of rubrics) on four leaves at the end. Obtained from [[Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal]] in 1793.<ref>{{cite book |title=Das Antiquariat ... |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wOziAAAAMAAJ |volume=7 |year=1951 |publisher=W. Krieg |language=de |pages=122– |quote=Das Exemplar enthält das älteste festgestellte Da*tum, das im Zusammenhang mit der Gutenberg*Bibel steht. ... Mit der „tabula rubricarum", auf 4 Blättern am Schluß des Werkes gedruckt. ... Das Exemplar gehörte früher Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal, dem Kurfürsten von Mainz, dessen Bibliothek 1793 aufgeteilt wurde.}}</ref><ref name="WagnerReed2010">{{cite book |author1=Bettina Wagner |author2=Marcia Reed |title=Early Printed Books as Material Objects: Proceedings of the Conference Organized by the IFLA Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Munich, 19–21 August 2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rXSAvawdIZIC&pg=PA15 |year= 2010 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-025530-0 |pages=15– |quote=As has been known for decades, the Gutenberg Bible shop printed not just the Bible itself, but also a separate rubric guide ... Gutenberg Bible at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, and at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.}}</ref><ref name="The AB Bookman's Yearbook">{{cite book |title=The AB Bookman's Yearbook |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wh4bAAAAMAAJ |year=1956 |publisher=Bookman's weekly |page=392 |quote=This copy contains the earliest recorded date associated with the Gutenberg Bible. At the end of both volumes are notes ... With the "tabula rubricarum" (index of rubrics) printed on 4 leaves at the end. These additional leaves occur in only one ...}}</ref><br />[http://archiv.onb.ac.at:1801/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=2176396 Online images] {{in lang|de}}
|-
| Belgium&nbsp;(1)
| Library of the [[University of Mons-Hainaut]], [[Mons, Belgium|Mons]]
| 1
| incomplete
| paper
| Vol. I, 104 leaves missing,<ref>{{cite book |title=Antiquarian Bookman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=avwYAQAAIAAJ |series=14–26 |volume=18 |year=1956 |publisher=R.R. Bowker |pages=1410– |quote=The example of the Gutenberg Bible in Mons is quite incomplete, containing only 220 leaves of Volume I. Folio 1 is ... end of the Book of Ruth (folio 128 verso) and chapter 5 of Kings II (folio 149 recto) These comprise the 104 missing leaves.}}</ref> bequeathed by Edmond Puissant to the city of Mons in 1934, but not identified until 1950.<ref name="Stummvoll1971">{{cite book |author=Josef Stummvoll |title=Die Gutenberg-Bibel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fvYaAAAAMAAJ |year=1971 |publisher=Österreichisches Institut für Bibliotheksforschung |language=de |pages=26– |quote=...Kanonikus Edmond Puissant in Mons. 1934 beim Tode Puissants an die Stadt Mons gekommen. Wurde erst 1950 vom Bibliothekar Dr. M. A. Arnould identifiziert. Nur bei Norman (20) und Stöwesand (14) verzeichnet. Aufbewahrt in der ...}}</ref> Part of the same copy as the volume in Indiana (see below).<ref name="Long lost" />
|-
| Denmark&nbsp;(1)
| [[Danish Royal Library]], [[Copenhagen]]
| 13
| incomplete
| paper
| Vol. II, first leaf missing. Acquired in 1749.<ref name="(Denmark)Ilsøe1993">{{cite book |author1=Kongelige Bibliotek (Denmark) |author2=Harald Ilsøe |title=On parchment, paper and palm leaves – treasures of the Royal Library, Denmark : a presentation in pictures and words on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the opening of the library to the public |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h_RLAQAAIAAJ |date=1993 |publisher=Royal Library |isbn=978-87-7023-621-8 |pages=30– |quote=Then, in 1713, Gottorp was captured during the war with Danmark and the library made the property of the Danish king. At that ... was volume 2 of the famous 42-line Bible, Johan Gutenberg's first great work of the art of printing done at Mainz c. ...}}</ref><ref name="Ilsøe1999">{{cite book |author=Harald Ilsøe |title=Det kongelige Bibliotek i støbeskeen: studier og samlinger til bestandens historie indtil ca. 1780 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b5QIaOgQZfwC&pg=PA65 |year=1999 |publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press |language=da |isbn=978-87-7289-550-5 |pages=65– |quote=Med et eksemplar af bind 2 af Gutenberg-biblen trykt i Mainz ca. ... af bøger til forsendelse trak ud, blev biblioteket først endeligt modtaget i København 1749.}}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="4" | France&nbsp;(4)
| rowspan="2" | [[Bibliothèque nationale de France]], [[Paris]]
| 15
| complete
| vellum
| Sold to the library in 1788 by Cardinal [[Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne]],<ref>{{cite book |title=Veröffentlichung der Gutenberg-gesellschaft |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5wLjAAAAMAAJ |volume=5–9 |year=1908 |language=fr |pages=58– |quote=Cédé en 1767 par les Bénédictins de Mayence à Dom Maugérard, pour Dupré de Geneste, Administrateur des Domaines à Meç, dont la bibliothèque fut vendue en 1788 par le cardinal Loménie de Brienne à la Bibliothèque  ...}}</ref> and rebound in four volumes.<ref>{{cite book |title=AB Bookman's Yearbook |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ieZWAAAAIAAJ |year=1956 |publisher=Bookman's weekly |pages=391– |quote=It is hoped these emendations will bring this revision of the Gutenberg Bible list totally up to date. The compiler ... In 1788 or shortly afterwards, it was rebound in red morocco, with the arms of Louis XVI stamped in gilt on the covers, in 4 vols.}}</ref><br />Online images of [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9912811?rk=107296;4 vol. 1] [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k991282d?rk=64378;0 vol. 2] [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k991283s?rk=128756;0 vol. 3] [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9912845?rk=21459;2 vol. 4]
|-
| 17
| incomplete
| paper
| Is distinguished by being inscribed with the earliest date that appears on any copy&nbsp;— 24 August 1456 on the first volume and 15 August 1456 on the second volume, the dates on which the rubricator and binder (Henricus Cremer) completed his work.<ref name=Aug1456>{{cite book |title=Das Antiquariat ... |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wOziAAAAMAAJ |volume=7 |year=1951 |publisher=W. Krieg |language=de |pages=122– |quote=Am Schlüsse der beiden Bände sind Vermerke des Rubrikators und Buchbinders Henricus Cremer über die Voll*endung seiner Arbeit eingetragen: (Bd. I ... 24. August 1456; Bd. II . . . 15. August 1456).}}</ref><ref name="Howard2005">{{cite book |last=Howard |first=Nicole |title=The Book: The Life Story Of A Technology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4WwdMJKXzhEC&pg=PA31 |access-date=23 August 2012 |date=2005 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-33028-5 |page=31}}</ref><br />[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k991433p/ Online images of vol. 1]
|-
| [[Bibliothèque Mazarine]], Paris
| 16
| complete
| paper
| The first copy to be discovered around 1760 in the Bibliothèque Mazarine (hence the name Mazarin Bible) by [[Guillaume-François Debure]] and described in the first volume of his ''Bibliographie instructive: ou Traite de la connoissance des livres rares et singuliers'' devoted to theology, which was published in Paris in 1763.<ref name="Goff1971">{{cite book |author=Frederick Richmond Goff |title=The permanence of Johann Gutenberg |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W_fgAAAAMAAJ |date= 1971 |publisher=Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin; distributed by University of Texas Press |pages=18–|isbn=9780292700598 }}</ref><ref name="RabinowitzKaplan2007">{{cite book |author1=Harold Rabinowitz |author2=Rob Kaplan |title=A Passion for Books: A Book Lover's Treasury of Stories, Essays, Humor, Lore, and Lists on Collecting, Reading, Borrowing, Lending, Caring for, and Appreciating Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xzjkYlfHXL4C&pg=PA229 |date= 2007 |publisher=Crown/Archetype |isbn=978-0-307-41966-8 |pages=229– |quote=The story of the resurrection of the Gutenberg Bible, after Francois Guillaume de Bure recognized its importance when he came upon a copy in 1763 in the Mazarin library, is however not a part of the history of the Bible in English and must ...}}</ref><ref name="ChambersFoster1890">{{cite book |author1=Talbot Wilson Chambers |author2=Frank Hugh Foster |title=Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge: Biblical, Doctrinal, Historical, and Practical |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bOxBAAAAYAAJ |year=1890 |publisher=Christian Literature Company |pages=553– |quote=Mazarin Bible, The, or Gutenberg Bible, Mentz, 1450–55, the first book printed with movable types. It was discovered by De Burc in the Mazarin Library at Paris about 1760. Six copies on vellum are known and 81 on paper. One of the latter is in ...}}</ref><br />Online images of [http://mazarinum.bibliotheque-mazarine.fr/records/item/1703-biblia-latina-premiere-partie vol. 1] and [http://mazarinum.bibliotheque-mazarine.fr/records/item/1744-biblia-latina-deuxieme-partie vol. 2] {{in lang|fr}}
|-
| Bibliothèque Municipale, [[Saint-Omer]]
| 18
| incomplete
| paper
| Vol. I, one missing leaf. Acquired from the [[Abbey of Saint Bertin]].<ref name="Saint-Léger1984">{{cite book |author=Alexandre Saint-Léger |title=Revue du Nord |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RelnAAAAMAAJ |series=261–263 |volume=66 |year=1984 |language=fr |pages=637– |quote=Nous ne saurions bien évidemment passer sous silence un volume de la Bible à 42 lignes de Gutenberg, conservé à Saint-Omer et venant de l'abbaye de Saint-Bertin '3, mais le catalogue relève également les éditions de Pierre Schoeffer à ...}}</ref><br />[https://bibliotheque-numerique.bibliotheque-agglo-stomer.fr/notices/item/1905-ancien-testament-bible Online images] {{in lang|fr}}
|-
| rowspan="13" | Germany&nbsp;(13)
| rowspan="2" | [[Gutenberg Museum]], [[Mainz]]
| 8
| incomplete
| paper
| The [[George Shuckburgh-Evelyn|Shuckburgh]] copy, two volumes but imperfect, sold by [[Hans P. Kraus]] for $1.8 million in March 1978.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Living Church |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=11zkAAAAMAAJ |volume=176 |date=January 1978 |publisher=Morehouse-Gorham Company |pages=75– |quote=A Gutenberg Bible has been sold by New York book dealer Hans P. Kraus for $1.8 million, the same price for which he bought it in 1970. ... Known as the Shuckburgh Bible, the Kraus copy was named after Sir George Shuckburgh, its 18th century owner, who ...}}</ref><ref name="Kirshenbaum">{{cite book |author=Sandra Kirshenbaum |title=Fine Print |year=1978 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RqHgAAAAMAAJ |publisher=S. Kirshenbaum |pages=102– |quote=Early in March Mr. Kraus sold his Bible, known as the Shuckburgh copy, to the Gutenberg Museum of Mainz for $1,800,000, the highest price ever paid ..}}</ref><br />[http://www.gutenberg-museum.de/index.php?id=115&L=1 Online images] {{in lang|de}}
|-
| 9
| incomplete
| paper
| Vol. II, the [[Solms-Laubach]] copy acquired in 1925.<ref name="Gutenberg-Gesellschaft1979">{{cite book |author=Gutenberg-Gesellschaft |title=Aloys Ruppel, 1882–1977: Würdigung bei der Gedächtnisfeier des Fachbereichs 16 Geschichtswissenschaft der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz und der Gutenberg-Gesellschaft am 21. Juni 1978 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BqUOAQAAMAAJ |year=1979 |publisher=Verlag der Gutenberg-Gesellschaft |language=de |pages=26– |quote=Als wir 1925 das silberne Jubiläum des Gutenberg-Museums vorbereiteten, rief mich Ministerialrat Hassinger vom ... von Solms-Laubach wolle sein Exemplar verkaufen und habe bereits ein Angebot von einem Leipziger Antiquar erhalten.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/vor-ungefaehr-600-jahren-wurde-gutenberg-geboren--mainz-ehrt-ihn-auf-verschiedene-weisen-heute-fuer-stielaugen-16774418 |title=Vor ungefähr 600 Jahren wurde Gutenberg geboren. Mainz ehrt ihn auf verschiedene Weisen: Heute für Stielaugen |work=Berliner Zeitung |date=18 April 2000 |access-date=5 March 2016 }}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
|-
| {{Interlanguage link multi|Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek Fulda|de}}, [[Fulda]]
| 4
| incomplete
| vellum
| Vol. I.  Two individual leaves from Vol. II survive in other libraries.<ref name="waste" />
|-
| [[Leipzig University Library]], [[Leipzig]]
| 14
| incomplete
| vellum
| Vol. I through IV.
|-
| [[Göttingen State and University Library]], [[Göttingen]]
| 2
| complete
| vellum
| Inscribed in [[UNESCO]]'s [[Memory of the World International Register]] since 2001.<ref>{{cite web |title=42-line Gutenberg Bible, printed on vellum, and its contemporary documentary background |url=https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/42-line-gutenberg-bible-printed-vellum-and-its-contemporary-documentary-background |publisher=UNESCO Memory of the World Programme |access-date=2025-07-08 }}</ref><br />[http://www.gutenbergdigital.de/gudi/eframes/bibelsei/frmlms/frms.htm Online images]
|-
| [[Berlin State Library]], [[Berlin]]
| 3
| incomplete
| vellum
| [https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht/?PPN=PPN869036874 Online images]
|-
| [[Bavarian State Library]], [[Munich]]
| 5
| complete
| paper
| One of only two copies to contain the "tabula rubricarum" (index of rubrics) on four leaves at the end. Also one of three existing copies in its original binding.<ref name="WagnerReed2010" /><ref name="The AB Bookman's Yearbook" /><br />Online images of [http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/bsb00004647/images/ vol. 1] and [http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/bsb00004648/images/ vol. 2] {{in lang|de}}
|-
| [[Frankfurt University Library]], [[Frankfurt am Main]]
| 6
| complete
| paper
| [http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/inc/id/2092766 Online images]
|-
| Hofbibliothek, [[Aschaffenburg]]
| 7
| incomplete
| paper
|
|-
| {{lang|de|[[Württembergische Landesbibliothek]]|italic=no}}, [[Stuttgart]]
| 10
| incomplete{{refn|While this Gutenberg Bible copy is technically complete, the leaf carrying part of Chapter 14, all of Chapter 15, and part of Chapter 16 of the Book of Ezekiel is not original to this copy. It was inserted in 1953 from another Gutenberg Bible to replace a forged leaf.}}
| paper
| Purchased in April 1978 for US$2.2 million from the General Theological Seminary.<br />[http://digital.wlb-stuttgart.de/purl/bsz348625510 Online images]
|-
| Stadtbibliothek, [[Trier]]
| 11
| incomplete
| paper
| Vol. I
|-
| Landesbibliothek, [[Kassel]]
| 12
| incomplete
| paper
| Vol. I
|-
| [[Gottorf Castle]], [[Schleswig]]
| 47
| incomplete
| paper
| The Rendsburg Fragment<ref name="Long lost" /><ref name="WhiteRosenstein2003">{{cite journal |last1=White |first1=Eric Marshall |last2=Rosenstein |first2=Natalee |last3=Travis |first3=Trysh |last4=Adams |first4=Peter W. |last5=Baensch |first5=Robert E. |title=Book reviews |journal=Publishing Research Quarterly |volume=19 |issue=2 |year=2003 |pages=65–72 |issn=1053-8801 |doi=10.1007/s12109-003-0009-3|s2cid=189906589 }}</ref>

|-
| Japan&nbsp;(1)
| [[Keio University]] Library, [[Tokyo]]
| 45<ref>{{Cite book|last=Davis|first=Margaret Leslie|title=The Lost Gutenberg: The Astounding Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey|publisher=TarcherPerigee|year=2019|isbn=9781592408672|location=New York}}</ref>
| incomplete
| paper
| Originally part of the [[Edward L. Doheny|Estelle Doheny]] bequest to [[St. John's Seminary (California)|St. John's Seminary]] in [[Camarillo, California]]. Vol. I, sold in October 1987 to Maruzen booksellers for US$4.9 million (plus an auction house commission of $490,000) for a total of $5.4 million.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CoxUAAAAIBAJ&pg=2197,2580330&dq=gutenberg+bible&hl=en |title=Ellensburg Daily Record&nbsp;– Google News Archive Search |work=google.com |access-date=2020-04-30 |archive-date=2021-04-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415005515/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CoxUAAAAIBAJ&pg=2197,2580330&dq=gutenberg+bible&hl=en |url-status=live }}</ref> Purchased by [[Keio University]] in 1996.<ref name="Gutenberg Bible: The HUMI Project">{{cite web |title=Gutenberg Bible: The HUMI Project |url=http://www.themorgan.org/collections/works/gutenberg/humi |website=The Morgan Library and Museum |date=4 November 2013 |access-date=13 May 2016 |archive-date=4 June 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604005403/http://www.themorgan.org/collections/works/gutenberg/humi |url-status=live }}</ref><br />[https://web.archive.org/web/20090710110502/http://www.humi.keio.ac.jp/treasures/incunabula/B42/keio/vol_1/contents.html Online images]
|-
| Poland&nbsp;(1)
| [[Diocesan Museum in Pelplin]]
| 28
| incomplete
| paper
| It has a blot on page 46 and it lacks a page 217 in Volume Two.
|-
| Portugal&nbsp;(1)
| [[Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal]], [[Lisbon]]
| 29
| complete
| paper
| Formerly owned by Cardinal [[Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne]]. <br />[http://purl.pt/28978/3/ Online images].
|-
| rowspan="2" | Russia (2)
| [[Moscow State University]], [[Moscow]]
| 49
| complete
| paper
| [[Looted art|Looted]] in 1945 from the library of the [[Leipzig University|University of Leipzig]].<ref name="tst93">{{cite news |title=Rare Gutenberg Bible Found In Russia 50 Years After War |date=1993-12-10 |work=The Seattle Times |url=https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19931210&slug=1736310 |quote=A rare 15th-century Gutenberg Bible that was among the treasures the Red army brought back as trophies from World War II was hidden so well in Russia's State Library that even the curator didn't know it was there. The Bible belonged to a museum in Germany, and was brought to Moscow in 1945 with other manuscripts and rare books, the newspaper Izvestia quoted the library director, Igor Filippov, as saying. [...] Russian authorities have agreed to negotiate their return.}}</ref><ref name="pop21">{{cite web |title=8 major cultural trophies the USSR took home after WWII |date=2021-04-22 |first=Anna |last=Popova |website=Russia Beyond |url=https://www.rbth.com/arts/333704-cultural-trophies-ussr-took-wwii |access-date=2024-01-18 |quote=Two Bibles printed by Johannes Gutenberg from the German Museum of Books and Writing in Leipzig also ended up in Moscow. Of 180 copies, only 47 have survived to our time, so one can imagine how rare these editions are. One of the Bibles is currently kept at Moscow Lomonosov University and the other, as it emerged only in the 1990s, is at the 'Leninka' (the Russian State Library, formerly the Lenin Library) in Moscow.}}</ref>
|-
| [[Russian State Library]], Moscow
| 48
| incomplete
| vellum
| Acquired in 1886 by the [[German Museum of Books and Writing]], Leipzig, as part of the book collection of {{illm|Heinrich Klemm|de|Heinrich Klemm (Verleger)}}.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mediengeschichte.dnb.de/DBSMZBN/Content/EN/Printing/04-ein-verlorener-schatz-en.html |title=German Museum of Books and Writing "Signs – Books – Networks" |access-date=10 April 2016 |archive-date=21 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160421011338/http://mediengeschichte.dnb.de/DBSMZBN/Content/EN/Printing/04-ein-verlorener-schatz-en.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Jäger2010">{{cite book |author=Georg Jäger |title=Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Band 1: Das Kaiserreich 1871–1918 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5zRBThkBXtoC&pg=PA218 |date=2010 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |language=de |isbn=978-3-11-023238-7 |pages=218–}}</ref> At the end of [[World War II]], it was taken as war booty and transferred to the [[Russian State Library]] in Moscow, where it remains today.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/buch-und-schriftkultur-das-geisterhaus/6356990.html |title=Buch- und Schriftkultur: Das Geisterhaus – Kultur – Tagesspiegel |newspaper=Der Tagesspiegel Online |date=22 March 2012 |access-date=10 April 2016 |language=de |last1=Becker |first1=Peter von |archive-date=22 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160422113757/http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/buch-und-schriftkultur-das-geisterhaus/6356990.html |url-status=live |quote=Doch die beiden Pergamentbände verwahrt bis heute die Russische Staatsbibliothek in Moskau, als Kriegsbeute.}}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="2" | Spain&nbsp;(2)
| Biblioteca Universitaria y Provincial, [[Seville]]
| 32
| incomplete
| paper
| New Testament only<br />[http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/01937063096696038547702/index.htm Online images] {{in lang|es}}
|-
| Biblioteca Pública Provincial, [[Burgos]]
| 31
| complete
| paper
|[http://bvpb.mcu.es/es/consulta/registro.cmd?id=485858 Online images]
|-
| Switzerland&nbsp;(1)
| [[Bodmer Library]], [[Cologny]]
| 30
| incomplete
| paper
|
|-
| rowspan="8" | United Kingdom&nbsp;(8)
| rowspan="2" | [[British Library]], [[London]]
| 19
| complete
| vellum
| The Grenville copy.<ref name="WetterGutenberg1836">{{cite book |author1=Johann Wetter |title=Kritische Geschichte der Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst durch Johann Gutenberg zu Mainz, begleitet mit einer, vorhin noch nie angestellten, genauen Prüfung und gänzlichen Beseitigung der von Schöpfiin und seinen Anhängern verfochtenen Ansprüche der Stadt Strassburg, und einer neuen Untersuchung der Ansprüche der Stadt Harlem und vollständigen Widerlegung ihrei Verfechter Junius, Meerman, Koning, Dibdin, Otley und Ebert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fr4yAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA520 |year=1836 |publisher=J. Wirth |language=de |pages=520–}}</ref><ref name="Humphreys1867">{{cite book |author=Henry Noel Humphreys |title=A History of the Art of Printing: From Its Invention to Its Wide-spread Development in the Middle of the 16th Century : Preceded by a Short Account of the Origin of the Alphabet and the Successive Methods of Recording Events and Multiplying Ms. Books Before the Invention of Printing |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GIlWAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA62 |year=1867 |publisher=B. Quaritch |pages=62–}}</ref> Bought for 6260 francs in 1817 by [[Thomas Grenville]], who bequeathed his collection to the [[British Museum]] in 1846.<ref name="Kerr2006">{{cite book |author=Donald Kerr |title=Amassing Treasures for All Times: Sir George Grey, Colonial Bookman and Collector |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uhPhAAAAMAAJ |date= 2006 |publisher=Oak Knoll Press |isbn=978-1-58456-196-5 |pages=95–}}</ref><br />[http://molcat1.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/search.asp Online images] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161104094544/http://molcat1.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/search.asp |date=4 November 2016 }}
|-
| 21
| complete
| paper
| [http://molcat1.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/search.asp Online images] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161104094544/http://molcat1.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/search.asp |date=4 November 2016 }}
|-
| [[National Library of Scotland]], [[Edinburgh]]
| 26
| complete
| paper
| [http://digital.nls.uk/74481666 Online images]
|-
| [[Lambeth Palace]] Library, London
| 20
| incomplete
| vellum
| New Testament only
|-
| [[College Library (Eton)|Eton College Library]], [[Eton College]]
| 23
| complete
| paper
| Printed in Mainz with the original 15th Century Erfurt binding, stamped calfskin, signed by Johannes Vogel. Donated by John Fuller (1757–1834). Belonged in the 15th century to the Carthusians at Erfurt. Only copy to retain the original binding in both volumes and is complete. Also one of three existing copies in its original binding. Also the only copy with the original binding to be signed with the binders mark. Illuminated copy, probably in Erfurt.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://collections.etoncollege.com/B25545 |title=Eton Collections &#124; B25545 |access-date=2020-04-25 |archive-date=2020-08-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805012225/http://collections.etoncollege.com/B25545 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url = https://www.gutenbergsapprentice.com/library-old-bible-holds/|title = A library as old as the Bible it holds|date = 16 May 2017|access-date = 25 April 2020|archive-date = 15 September 2020|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200915022254/https://www.gutenbergsapprentice.com/library-old-bible-holds/|url-status = live}}</ref>

|-
| [[John Rylands Library]], [[Manchester]]
| 25
| complete
| paper
| Acquired for £80 by [[George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer]] some time before 1814,<ref>{{cite book |author=Thomas Frognall Dibdin |title=Bibliotheca Spenceriana; Or a Descriptive Catalogue of the Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century, and of Many Valuable First Editions in the Library of George John Earl Spencer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z8Fwu-apy3AC&pg=PA6 |volume=1 |year=1814 |pages=6–}}</ref><ref name="Carter1940">{{cite book |author=Albert Charles Robinson Carter |title=Let Me Tell You |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=joMMAQAAIAAJ |year=1940 |publisher=Hutchinson & Company |pages=202–}}</ref> [[Enriqueta Augustina Rylands]] bought it in 1892 for the John Rylands Library.<br />[https://web.archive.org/web/20150415225321/http://enriqueta.man.ac.uk:8180/luna/servlet/view/group/143 Online images of 11 pages]
|-
| [[Bodleian Library]], [[Oxford]]
| 24<ref>{{cite web |url=http://incunables.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/record/B-237 |title=Bod-Inc online |access-date=5 March 2016 |archive-date=6 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306062124/http://incunables.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/record/B-237 |url-status=live }}</ref>
| complete
| paper
| Bought in 1793 for £100 from Cardinal [[Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne]].<br />Online images of [http://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/p/bea56620-793f-4dee-875d-ff051563292a vol. 1] and [http://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/p/864b2a7f-f64e-4085-906b-5b880af7e8ca vol. 2]
|-
| [[Cambridge University Library]], [[Cambridge]]
| 22<ref>{{cite web |url=http://audiblewink.com/blog/?tag=cambridge-university-library |title=Cambridge University Library&nbsp;– Addendum |work=Addendum |date=9 September 2015 |access-date=5 March 2016 |archive-date=26 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180926125355/http://audiblewink.com/blog/?tag=cambridge-university-library |url-status=live }}</ref>
| complete
| paper
| Acquired as part of a gift in 1933.<ref name="Fox1998">{{cite book |author=Peter Fox |title=Cambridge University Library: The Great Collections |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xxlgKP5thL8C&pg=PA65 |date= 1998 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-62647-7 |pages=65–}}</ref><br />Online images of [http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PR-INC-00001-A-00001-00001-03761/1 vol. 1] and [http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PR-INC-00001-A-00001-00001-03761/666 vol. 2]
|-
| rowspan="11" | United States&nbsp;(11)
| rowspan="3" | [[The Morgan Library & Museum]], [[New York City|New York]]
| 37
| complete
| vellum
| PML 13 & PML 818. Acquired in 1815 by [[Mark Masterman-Sykes]].<ref name="MatsudaLinenthal2004">{{cite book |author1=Takami Matsuda |author2=Richard A. Linenthal |author3=John Scahill |title=The medieval book and a modern collector: essays in honour of Toshiyuki Takamiya |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-roPAQAAMAAJ |date= 2004 |publisher=D.S. Brewer |isbn=978-4-8419-0348-5 |pages=448–}}</ref>
|-
| 38
| complete
| paper
| PML 19206–7
|-
| 44
| incomplete
| paper
| PML 1. Old Testament only<br />[http://www.themorgan.org/collections/works/gutenberg/page/1 Online images]
|-
| [[Library of Congress]], [[Washington, D.C.]]
| 35
| complete
| vellum
| [https://www.loc.gov/item/52002339/ Online images] Printed on vellum and bound in three alum-tawed pigskin-covered volumes. On permanent display. Purchased in 1930 with government funds for the Library of Congress. It is the centerpiece of a larger book collection acquired from Dr. Otto Vollbehr.
|-
| [[New York Public Library]]
| 42
| complete
| paper
|
|-
| [[Widener Library#gutenbergbible|Widener Library]], [[Harvard University]]
| 40
| complete
| paper 
| [https://library.harvard.edu/collections/gutenberg-bible Online images of selected pages]
|-
| [[Beinecke Library]], [[Yale University]]
| 41
| complete
| paper
| The [[Melk Abbey|Melk]] copy, a gift from Mrs. [[Edward Harkness]] in 1926.<ref name="KentLancour1982">{{cite book |author1=Allen Kent |author2=Harold Lancour |author3=Jay E. Daily |title=Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science: Volume 33&nbsp;– The Wellesley College Library to Zoological Literature: A Review |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XPY96DdVt2UC&pg=PA315 |date=1982 |publisher=CRC Press |isbn=978-0-8247-2033-9 |pages=315– |quote=Perhaps the most outstanding volume in the Beinecke collection is the Melk copy of the Gutenberg Bible, the gift of Mrs. Edward S. Harkness. The Gutenberg Bible is thought to have been the first book printed with movable type and was ...}}</ref><ref name="MorleyKalfus1990">{{cite book |author1=Christopher Morley |author2=Ken Kalfus |author3=Walter Jack Duncan |title=Christopher Morley's Philadelphia |url=https://archive.org/details/christophermorle1990morl |url-access=registration |date= 1990 |publisher=Fordham Univ Press |isbn=978-0-8232-1270-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/christophermorle1990morl/page/76 76]–}}</ref>
|-
| [[Scheide Library]], [[Princeton University]]
| 43
| complete
| paper
| The Brinley-Cole-[[Brayton Ives|Ives]]-[[James Ellsworth (industrialist)|Ellsworth]]-[[Scheide Library|Scheide]] copy,<ref name="Adams1939">{{cite book |author=Randolph G. Adams |title=The Americanists |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A9yvS17hLlkC |year=1939 |pages=49– |quote=This particular Bible came from Erfurt, in Germany.24 It was handled by a Berlin dealer, A. Asher, who also had a ... So Brinley got a Gutenberg Bible at ,£637-15-0, and, as Stevens said, "Cheap at the price." 25 But ... Brinley&nbsp;– Hamilton Cole&nbsp;– Brayton Ives&nbsp;– James W. Ellsworth&nbsp;– A. S. W. Rosenbach&nbsp;– John H. Scheide.}}</ref><ref name="Club1966">{{cite book |author=Grolier Club |title=Gazette of the Grolier Club |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5JUqAQAAMAAJ |year=1966 |pages=116– |quote=There were three main type groups represented in the exhibition: The type of the 42-line Bible. The type of the 36-line ... THE 4'2-LINE BIBLE This work is the masterpiece of Johann Gutenberg. Mr. Goff has ... now owned by Arthur A. Houghton Jr.; and the Brinley-Cole-Ives-Ellsworth copy, now owned by William H. Scheide.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Princeton University Library Chronicle |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IlM4AAAAIAAJ |volume=37–39 |year=1976 |publisher=Friends of the Princeton University Library |pages=77– |quote=sold the Bible a year later for $46,000 to the late John H. Scheide, the father of the present owner. The Brinley-Cole-Ives-Ellsworth- Scheide copy was brought to Princeton from Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1959, where it had remained for 35 years. ... Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt in his Gutenberg and the Master of the Playing Cards (New Haven and London, 1966) has shown the relationship of a number of ...}}</ref> one of three existing copies in its original binding.<ref>{{cite book |title=Princeton Alumni Weekly |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8hJbAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA86 |volume=61 |year=1960 |publisher=princeton alumni weekly |pages=86– |id=PRNC:32101081976894}}</ref><br />[http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/7d278t10z Online images]
|-
| [[Lilly Library]], [[Indiana University]]
| 46<ref name="Leslie1960">{{cite book |author=Frank P. Leslie |title=The 46th Gutenberg |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wXw2AAAAIAAJ |year=1960 |publisher=Vagabond Press}}</ref>
| incomplete
| paper
| New Testament only, 12 leaves missing.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Friends of the Lilly Library Newsletter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=otrjAAAAMAAJ |volume=29–32 |year=1998 |publisher=Indiana University Foundation |pages=5– |quote=The second volume of the Gutenberg Bible from which the Lilly Library New Testament would eventually be extracted was discovered in 1828 in a farmhouse ... The copy had 116 leaves of the original 128 of a full Gutenberg New Testament.}}</ref> Part of the same copy as the volume in Mons, Belgium (see above).<ref name="HellingaDavies1999">{{cite book |author1=Lotte Hellinga |author2=Martin Davies |title=Incunabula: studies in fifteenth-century printed books presented to Lotte Hellinga |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ojDrAAAAMAAJ |year=1999 |publisher=British Library |pages=341–|isbn=9780712345071 }}</ref> <br />[http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/general/VAB8631 Online images]
|-
| [[The Huntington|Henry E. Huntington Library]], [[San Marino, California]]
| 36
|complete
| vellum
|
|-
| [[Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center]], [[University of Texas at Austin]]
| 39
| complete
| paper
| Purchased in 1978 for US$2.4 million.<br />[https://hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15878coll100/id/3980/rec/1 Online images]
|-
| rowspan="2" | [[Vatican City]]&nbsp;(2)
| rowspan="2" | [[Vatican Library]]
| 33
| incomplete
| vellum
| Online images of [http://digi.vatlib.it/view/Stamp.Barb.AAA.IV.16 vol. 1] and [http://digi.vatlib.it/view/Stamp.Barb.AAA.IV.17 vol. 2]
|-
| 34
| incomplete
| paper
|  Vol. I.
|}
{{Collapse bottom}}

=== Fragments ===
Some fragments of the Gutenberg Bible are housed at:

* The [[Library of Trinity College Dublin]], [[Dublin]], Ireland
* The [[Basel University Library]], [[Basel]], Switzerland
* The [[British Library]], London - known as the [[John Bagford|Bagford]] Fragment
* [[University of Melbourne|The University of Melbourne]], Melbourne, Australia<ref>{{Cite web |title=A fragment of the Gutenberg Bible at the University of Melbourne {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/video/copies-Gutenberg-Bible-leaves/-204712 |access-date=2024-11-13 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>
* The Schiede Library at [[Princeton University]], [[Princeton, New Jersey|Princeton]], New Jersey, USA<ref>{{Cite web |last=White |first=Eric |date=2017-04-18 |title=Princeton Acquires a Vellum Fragment of the Gutenberg Bible Preserved as a Book Cover |url=https://blogs.princeton.edu/notabilia/2017/04/18/princeton-acquires-a-vellum-fragment-of-the-gutenberg-bible-preserved-as-a-book-cover/ |access-date=2024-11-13 |website=Notabilia: A Blog about Rare Books |language=en-US}}</ref>
* The Rendsberg Fragment at [[Gottorf Castle]], Schleswig, Germany
* The McCune Collection, California, USA
* The [[William Andrews Clark Memorial Library|Clark Library]] at [[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]], California, USA
* The John Carter Brown Library of the Early Americas in [[Providence, Rhode Island|Providence]], Rhode Island, USA
* The [[National Library of New Zealand]], Wellington, New Zealand<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tedeschi |first=Anthony |date=2 November 2022 |title=Off the record {{!}} Europe’s first printer |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/off-the-record-europes-first-printer |url-status=live |access-date=25 August 2025 |website=National Library of New Zealand}}</ref>
Several fragments and single leaves sold at [[Christie's|Christie's Auction House]] or [[Sotheby's]] in the 21st century.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Flood |first=Alison |date=2015-06-11 |title=Fragment of Gutenberg Bible expected to top $500,000 at auction |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/11/fragment-of-gutenberg-bible-expected-half-million-dollars-auction-new-york |access-date=2024-11-13 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

==Recent history==
[[File:Gutenberg cover.jpg|thumbnail|upright|Binding of the copy at the University of Texas at Austin]]
[[File:Gutenberg Bible, 1952 anniversary issue.jpg|thumb|upright|In 1952 the US Post Office issued a [[commemorative stamp]] celebrating the 500th anniversary of the first printing of the Bible with [[moveable type]].The stamp depicts an image of Gutenberg showing a proof of his Bible to [[Adolph II of Nassau|Aldoph of Nassau]], Archbishop of Mainz.]]

Today, few copies remain in religious institutions, with most now owned by university libraries and other major scholarly institutions. After centuries in which all copies seem to have remained in Europe, the first Gutenberg Bible reached North America in 1847. It is now in the New York Public Library.<ref name="Clausen">Clausen Books [http://www.clausenbooks.com/gutenbergcensus.htm Gutenberg Bible Census] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708163336/http://www.clausenbooks.com/gutenbergcensus.htm |date=2011-07-08 }} accessed 7 July 2009</ref> In the last hundred years, several long-lost copies have come to light, considerably improving the understanding of how the Bible was produced and distributed.<ref name="waste" />

In 1921 a New York rare book dealer, [[Gabriel Wells]], bought a damaged copy, dismantled the book and sold sections and individual leaves to book collectors and libraries. The leaves were sold in a portfolio case with an essay written by [[A. Edward Newton]], and were referred to as "Noble Fragments".<ref name="mccune">{{cite web |url=http://www.mccunecollection.org/Incunabula%20Leaf%20Biblia%20Latina.html |title=Incunabula Leaf Biblia Latina (ca 1450) Gutenberg |work=The McCune Collection |date=31 August 2014 |access-date=1 October 2014 |archive-date=6 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006081738/http://www.mccunecollection.org/Incunabula%20Leaf%20Biblia%20Latina.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Johann Gutenberg: A Noble Fragment: Being a Leaf of the Gutenberg Bible, 1450–1455/With a Bibliographical Essay. |url=http://lbis.kenyon.edu/sca/exhibits/incunabula/z241b58.phtml |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901123038/http://lbis.kenyon.edu/sca/exhibits/incunabula/z241b58.phtml |archive-date=2006-09-01 |department=Incunabula: Books from the Cradle of Printing |location=Gambier, Ohio |publisher=Greenslade Special Collections and Archives, Kenyon College |access-date=24 August 2025}}</ref> In 1953 [[Charles Scribner's Sons]], also book dealers in New York, dismembered a damaged paper copy of volume II. The largest portion of this, the New Testament, is now owned by Indiana University. The leaf carrying part of Chapter 14, all of Chapter 15, and part of Chapter 16 of the [[Book of Ezekiel]] was donated to the General Theological Seminary to repair their copy of the bible (now located at the Württembergische Landesbibliothek).<ref name="GeneralTheologicalSeminary" /> The matching first volume of this copy was subsequently discovered in Mons, Belgium, having been bequeathed by Edmond Puissant to the city in 1934.<ref name="Long lost" />

The only copy held outside Europe and North America is the first volume of a Gutenberg Bible (Hubay 45) at [[Keio University]] in Tokyo. The Humanities Media Interface Project (HUMI) at Keio University is known for its high-quality digital images of Gutenberg Bibles and other rare books.<ref name="Gutenberg Bible: The HUMI Project" /> Under the direction of Professor [[Toshiyuki Takamiya]], the HUMI team has made digital reproductions of 11 sets of the bible in nine institutions, including both full-text facsimiles held in the collection of the [[British Library]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pearson |first1=David |editor1-last=Bowman |editor1-first=J |title=British Librarianship and Information Work 1991–2000: Rare book librarianship and historical bibliography |date=2006 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing Ltd. |location=Aldershot |isbn=978-0-7546-4779-9 |page=178}}</ref>

The last sale of a complete Gutenberg Bible took place in 1978, which sold for $2.4 million. This copy is now in Austin, Texas.<ref name="Clausen" /> The price of a complete copy today is estimated at $25−35 million.<ref name="MSNBC">[https://web.archive.org/web/20050204103238/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6124643/ In the book world, the rarest of the rare]</ref><ref name="Luxist.com">[http://www.luxist.com/2008/01/31/the-world-of-rare-books-the-gutenberg-bible-first-and-most-val/ The World of Rare Books: The Gutenberg Bible, First and Most Valuable] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130410171301/http://www.luxist.com/2008/01/31/the-world-of-rare-books-the-gutenberg-bible-first-and-most-val |date=2013-04-10 }}</ref>

A two-volume paper edition of the Gutenberg Bible was stolen from [[Moscow State University]] in 2009 and subsequently recovered in an [[Federal Security Service|FSB]] sting operation in 2013.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27738164 |title=Russia sentences secret agents over theft of Gutenberg Bible |work=BBC News |date=6 June 2014 |access-date=21 June 2018 |archive-date=10 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180710194516/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27738164 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Possession of a Gutenberg Bible by a library has been equated to keeping a "trophy book".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hetzer |first=Armin |date=1996 |others=Translated from German and Russian by Gregory Walker |title='The Return from the States of the Former Soviet Union of Cultural Property Removed in the 1940s' as a Bibliographical Undertaking |url=https://archive.org/details/solanusnewseries_0010 |journal=Solanus |volume=10 |issn=0038-0903 |quote=The 'trophy' books fulfilled a threefold function. A part of them consisted of trophies in the stricter sense, for example the Gutenberg Bible now held in the Russian State Library (formerly the Lenin Library). Such books are not put to use for practical purposes: they are simply objects of beauty. Another part was ... [p. 17] |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Books in Germany]]
* [[Canons of page construction]]
* [[Incunable]]
* [[Jikji]]
* [[List of most expensive books and manuscripts]]

== General bibliography ==
* [[Niels Henry Sonne]]. [https://archive.org/details/americasoldestep0000unse ''America's Oldest Episcopal Seminary Library and the Needs It Serves'']. New York: The Library of The [[General Theological Seminary]], 1953. {{OCLC|10978996}}.
* St. Mark's Library (General Theological Seminary). [https://archive.org/details/gutenbergbibleof0000stma ''The Gutenberg Bible of the General Theological Seminary'']. New York: St. Mark's Library, the General Theological Seminary, 1963.
* ''The Gutenberg Bible of 1454'' {{In lang|la}}, Göttingen Library, Facsimile Edition, 2 vols + booklet, ed. Stephan Füssel, 1400 pp. Taschen: Cologne.

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* [http://www.gutenbergdigital.de/gudi/start.htm Gutenberg Digital] Public access to digitised copy of the Gutenberg Bible held by the [[Göttingen State and University Library]] in Germany
* [https://www.themorgan.org/collection/Gutenberg-Bible Morgan Gutenberg Bible Online] Digitised copy of the Gutenberg Bible at the [[Morgan Library & Museum]] in the United States
* [http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/homepage.html Treasures in Full: Gutenberg Bible] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131010145559/http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/homepage.html |date=10 October 2013 }} Information about Gutenberg and the Bible as well as online images of the British Library's two copies
* [http://www.clausenbooks.com/gutenbergcensus.htm Gutenberg Bible Census] Details of surviving copies, including some notes on [[provenance]]
* [http://www.bavarikon.de/object/bav:BSB-ANG-0000HSS000MWK001/ The Munich copy of the Gutenberg Bible] on [http://www.bavarikon.de/ bavarikon]
* [http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/bsb00004649/images/ Tabula rubricarum] {{in lang|de}} Image of rubricators' instructions from the Munich copy
* {{cite book | url = https://archive.org/details/1462TheGutenbergBibleLatinVulgate/page/n11 | title = 1462 The Gutenberg Bible Latin Vulgate| via = [[Internet Archive|archive.org]] }}
* [http://streaming.yale.edu/opa/podcasts/audio/schools/library/whobrey_071008.mp3 The Gutenberg Bible at the Beinecke] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727195934/http://streaming.yale.edu/opa/podcasts/audio/schools/library/whobrey_071008.mp3 |date=2020-07-27 }} Podcast from the Beinecke Library, Yale University
* [http://www.mccunecollection.org/gutenberg_leaf.html The Gutenberg Leaf]—Image and information about a single "Noble Fragment" held by the McCune Collection in Vallejo, California
* [http://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-gutenberg-bible History in the Headlines: 7 Things You May Not Know About the Gutenberg Bible] History.com, February 23, 2015
* Fragment of the Gutenberg Bible, [https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/concern/works/ws859k088?locale=en Biblia Latina <nowiki>[Armoire S]</nowiki>], at the Library of Trinity College Dublin
* Fragment of the Gutenberg Bible, ''[https://clarklibrary.ucla.edu/collections/gutenberg/ A Noble Fragment: Being a Leaf of the Gutenberg Bible (1450–55)]'', at the Clark Library of the University of California, Los Angeles
* [https://jcblibrary.org/collection/gutenberg-bible Fragment of the Gutenberg Bible] at the John Carter Brown Library of the Early Americas

{{Books}}
{{Authority control|state=expanded}}

[[Category:1450s books]]
[[Category:15th-century Christian texts]]
[[Category:15th-century books in Latin]]
[[Category:Bodleian Library]]
[[Category:Early printed Bibles]]
[[Category:Editions of the Vulgate]]
[[Category:Incunabula]]
[[Category:Johannes Gutenberg]]
[[Category:Mainz]]
[[Category:Memory of the World Register]]