Excerpt from The Spirit of Laws
A comparison with the Wurzburg Missal, which is now in the British Museum, shows that Gutenberg must have had his types executed from just such a manuscript. It was not till after the issue of many smaller essays that the first printed Bible was at last completed. This event probably took place in the year 1455, if the first copies were issued by Gutenberg himself; and certainly not later than 1456, or beginning of 1457, if published by Fust, as there is a copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale in which a manuscript note indicates that the two volumes were illuminated and bound by Henry Albech, alias Cremer, vicar of the Collegiate Church of St. Stephen, at Mayence, in 1457. The work which thus at last appeared to crown all Gutenberg's labors with eventual success is a most wonderful monument of art, especially as being the first attempt at printing on a large scale. Gutenberg's Bible is printed in two columns with spaces left for the headings, to be filled by the rubricator, and also for large initials. Each column contains forty-two lines, which distinguishes this edition from the editions printed soon afterward, which were, respectively, of thirty-six and forty-five lines per column. Both of these later editions were erroneously attributed to Gutenberg, while they are now considered to be subsequent issues by Fust and Schoeffer.
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