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I’m not Catholic, and I’ve barely read the Bible, but I really love beautiful books, especially books that have changed history. When I visited the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, the museum shop was selling letterpress reproductions of pages from the Gutenberg Bible with the same layout as the originals (42 lines). I got the Genesis excerpt.
Gutenberg Bible I/5, Genesis (First Book of Moses 1,1–30): “In principio creavit deus…“
In six days, God created the heavens and the earth, light and darkness, water and land, plants, animals and people. We offer this famous passage from the Good Book based on the Göttingen and Berlin copies of the Gutenberg Bible. Both are heralded as the surviving Bibles with the most beautiful illumination. The initial “I” of “In principio creavit deus…” fills the left margin and depicts the story of Creation in six medaillions.
There are many choices, hand-painted, hand-illuminated, illuminated exactly like the originals… the price varies between €14 and €2,300 depending on the version.
Even though the Gutenberg Bible is a printed book, several versions exist, mainly due to production techniques, materials used, and customizations made after printing. Some were printed on paper, others on parchment (vellum). Additionally, each copy could receive decorations, colors, and hand-added illuminations according to the client’s request or the owner’s means, making each copy unique.
I opted for the simplified version at €14, in three colors, based on the Berlin Gutenberg Bible but still with drawings.
Ribbed deckle-edge paper, format 42 x 30 cm
Three-colour press prints produced on historical Gutenberg Museum machines (Original Heidelberg Cylinder) in three different print runs on mechanically-produced, hand-torn, ribbed deckle-edge paper. The outlines of ornamentation are also printed.
Starting from this simplified version, I applied gold leaf and colored it. It’s not as colorful and detailed as the original, but this paper isn’t of very good quality, I had to stop the work at times because the feel didn’t bring me joy.
It was a fun project even though I would have preferred working on parchment.
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