In the present
Bible among the typographical differences found in the copies are three
varieties of the colophon, two of which however are identical in
language and differ only in the printers' use of contractions and
capitals. The more common of the forms affirms that: "This present work
by the ingenious invention of printing or stamping letters without any
scratching of the pen has been thus fashioned in the city of Mainz and
to the worship of God has been diligently brought to completion by
Johann Fust citizen and Peter Schoeffer clerk of the same diocese in the
year of the Lord 1462, on the eve of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary."
In Seymour de Ricci's "Catalogue raisonne des premieres impressions de
Mayence (1445-1467)," Mainz, 1911, 61 known copies of this Bible, 36 of
them on vellum, are enumerated and 41 copies which cannot now be traced.
The fragment in our possession is entered (No. 115) as one leaf only,
instead of two.
The second dated Bible, the eleventh in the series of printed Bibles,
was that of Sweynheym and Pannartz, Rome, 1471; the third was a reprint
by Schoeffer in 1472 of the present edition, page for page, line for
line and in the same type.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33