(Mainz: Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust, ca.1450).

A WONDERFUL LEAF FROM THE FIRST BOOK EVER PRINTED WITH MOVEABLE TYPE AND THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL PRINTED BOOKS. AND A LEAF IN EXCELLENT CONDITION, REMARKABLY CLEAN, WELL-MARGINED AND HANDSOMELY RUBRICATED. This leaf features a section from the Old Testament of St Jerome’s Vulgate: Jeremiah 25:19 to 27:6, mentioning the Seventy Years of Captivity of the tribe of Judah, Jeremiah being threatened with death and God’s command that the tribe of Judah serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. The leaf has been identified as vol. II, quire 9 (leaf 3), fol. 83; the Bull’s Head (type I or II) watermark suggests this was a first setting.
The Gutenberg Bible may be described without the slightest exaggeration not only as the earliest but also the greatest printed book in the world. It is the first book from the printing press, having been preceded only by a few trial pieces, single leaves, almanacs and grammatical booklets of which merely stray fragments remain.
It is, as well, one of the most beautiful books ever printed. The quiet dignity of those twelve-hundred or so pages of bold, stately type, the deep black ink, the broadness of the margins, the glossy crispness of the paper, may have been equaled, but they have never been surpassed; and in its very cradle, the printer’s art, thanks to the Gutenberg Bible, shines forth indeed as an art as much and more than as a craft.
Last but not least, the Gutenberg Bible is the first printed edition of the Book of Books. The mere fact that in the Rhine valley in 1455 the first book to be printed should have been the Bible tells its own story. "While Gutenberg and Fust were actually at work, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 announced the end of an old world and the dawn of modern thought. Did Gutenberg realize that by setting the Holy Text in type he was heralding one of the greatest movements of human thought in the history of the civilized world?” (S. De Ricci).
In 1872 the second Gutenberg Bible to be sent to America was shipped along with these eloquent instructions from Henry Stevens of London; “Pray, Sir, ponder for a moment and appreciate the rarity and importance of this precious consignment from the old world to the new. Not only is it the first Bible, but it is the first book ever printed. It was read in Europe half a century before America was discovered. Please suggest to your deputy that he uncover his head while in the presence of this great book. Let no custom house official, or other man in or out of authority, see it without first reverently raising his hat. It is not possible for many men to touch, or even look upon a page of a Gutenberg Bible.”
Hundreds of volumes, indeed whole libraries have been written about the invention of printing and about Gutenberg— of the struggle to design letters, to discover a metal that would hold clear cut edges and stand pressure; to find paper and a formula for ink that could be applied to it by type, to perfect a press that would bring uniform contact, etc.
The Bible is not only the oldest printed book--the most reprinted book--the most translated book... it is, quite properly, the most sought-after of books by bibliophiles, and the most expensive. The last public sale, of a single volume of the two which had originally been issued (the Old Testament and the New Testament) exceeded $5,250,000.
This leaf—one of the ‘Noble Fragments’, so named by the book collector A. Edward Newton (1864-1940)—comes from an imperfect copy once in the Mannheim library of Carl Theodor von Pfalz-Sulzbach (1721-94), Electoral Prince of Palatinate and later Bavaria. In 1803, the copy was transferred, with Carl Thedor’s other books, to the Royal Library of Munich. It was thence sold as a
duplicate in 1832 and purchased by Robert Curzon, Baron Zouche (1810-73). Next sold at Sotheby’s in 1920, the copy was acquired by Joseph Sabin and, subsequently, by the prominent antiquarian bookseller Gabriel Wells. Wells removed the eighteenth-century binding with the gilt Palatine arms and
subdivided the copy into smaller fragments or individual leaves. He sold these separately. Many are now preserved in institutional libraries (see White, Editio Princeps, p.135). In the years since, individual leaves, rather than longer excerpts, have been offered for sale. The ‘Noble Fragments’ are the closest a dedicated bibliophile can get to acquiring this monument of Western printing.
Gabriel Wells intended that multiple collectors and institutions could have the opportunity to own “A Noble Fragment” of this Supreme Book. The present leaf is a superb example and a rare opportunity to acquire a specimen of the greatest printed book in the history of humankind. Item #32437

A single, highly important leaf from the famed 42-line Bible, the first book printed from moveable type, A Noble Fragment. "Bull's Head" watermark, printed in gothic letter, double column, two initial ‘I’s, book headers and chapter numbers rubricated in alternating red and blue ink. Capitals highlighted with red strokes. Rubricator’s guidelines in black-brown ink to upper blank margins in a neat German hand. Folio (390 x 286mm); 42-lines, double column; type: 1:140G, enclosed in a full blue morocco foldover case and protected behind white mounting board. The case is lettered on the top in gilt. Single leaf of the first book printed with moveable type. An especially fine and handsome specimen, remarkably clean, well-margined and rubricated with only very minor evidence of age, the binding also in fine condition.