The Giant Bible of Mainz is a very large

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

produced in 1452–53, probably in

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...

or nearby. It is notable for its beauty, for being one of the last manuscript Bibles written before the invention of printing in the West, and for its possible connections with the

Gutenberg Bible The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed b ...

.Giant Bible of Mainz
Library of Congress Bible Collection.

Place and date of production

The Bible's colophon records that the scribe began work on April 4, 1452, and finished on July 9, 1453. Around this time large Bibles, designed to be read from a lectern, were returning to popularity for the first time since the twelfth century. In the intervening period, small hand-held Bibles had been usual. Although the place of production cannot be known with certainty, several pieces of evidence link it to Mainz, including the style of decoration. The style of the script also suggests an origin somewhere in the Middle or Lower Rhine region, and the Bible is known to have been owned by

Mainz Cathedral , native_name_lang = , image = Mainzer Dom nw.jpg , imagesize = , imagelink = , imagealt = , caption = , pushpin map = , pushpin label position = , pushpin map alt = , pushpin mapsize = , relief = , map caption = , iso regi ...

from at least 1566.

Description

The Bible was written by a single

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of ...

of high quality. The pages measure 576 x 405mm (22.6 x 15.9in) and the text is arranged in two columns of 60 lines, with wide margins. There are decorations in a range of styles, by more than one artist. The decoration was never completed, for unknown reasons. Only a few pages in the first volume have the complex and finely drawn illuminated borders the Bible is known for. The Bible is bound in two volumes, with 244 leaves in the first and 214 in the second. It is likely that one preliminary and two end leaves are missing. The binding is of plain pigskin over wooden boards and is more or less contemporary with the rest of the book.Dimunation, Mark G. and De Simone, Daniel P
The Gutenberg Bible and the Giant Bible of Mainz
Accessed 8 October 2009. The text block is secured by nine cords with head and tail bands of red, white, and green silk. The text of the Bible has been little-studied but is close to other

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

Bibles of the period.

Owners

The

provenance Provenance (from the French ''provenir'', 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art but is now used in similar senses i ...

of the Bible is known from 1566 onward. In that year Heinrich von Stockheim of

deposited it in the cathedral library. It is unclear whether he was donating it to the cathedral or simply transferring it to the library from the chantry. In 1631 the library was seized as a

prize of war A prize of war is a piece of enemy property or land seized by a belligerent party during or after a war or battle, typically at sea. This term was used nearly exclusively in terms of captured ships during the 18th and 19th centuries. Basis in inte ...

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Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, who gave the Bible to one of his officers,

Bernard of Saxe-Weimar Bernard of Saxe-Weimar (german: Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar; 16 August 160418 July 1639) was a German prince and general in the Thirty Years' War. Biography Born in Weimar within the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, Bernard was the eleventh son of Johan ...

. It remained in Bernard's family until sold to

Lessing J. Rosenwald Lessing Julius Rosenwald (February 10, 1891 – June 24, 1979) was an American businessman, a collector of rare books and art, a chess patron, and a philanthropist. Biography Born in Chicago, Lessing J. Rosenwald was the eldest son of Julius R ...

, via the bookseller

Hans P. Kraus Hans Peter Kraus (October 12, 1907 – November 1, 1988), also known as H. P. Kraus or HPK, was an Austrian-born book dealer described as "without doubt the most successful and dominant rare book dealer in the world in the second half of the 20th c ...

, in 1951. In 1952 Rosenwald donated it to the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

. The Bible is in very good condition, suggesting that it was never regularly read. There are no thumb-marks and very little discoloration to the outer margins. It was foliated in the nineteenth century.

Relationship to Gutenberg Bible

The Giant Bible was written at the same time as

Johannes Gutenberg Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (; – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and Artisan, craftsman who introduced letterpress printing to Europe with his movable type, movable-type printing press. Though not the first of its ki ...

was printing his Bible, and possibly in the same town. The Gutenberg Bible was clearly modelled on the large-format manuscript Bibles being written at this time, for instance in its page size and its wide margins. There has been speculation that the Giant Bible was a particular influence on Gutenberg, but the evidence for this is limited. Gutenberg's

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are list of type ...

is in the same

textura Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...

style, but it does not seem that the hand of the Giant Bible's scribe was the model for it. The text of the Giant Bible is not especially close to the Gutenberg Bible. Several animals, humans, and flowers featured in the decorated borders added to some pages closely resemble figures in the

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

copy of the Gutenberg Bible and also in the work of the

Master of the Playing Cards The Master of the Playing Cards (german: Meister der Spielkarten) was the first major master in the history of printmaking. He was a German (or conceivably Swiss) engraver, and probably also a painter, active in southwestern Germany – proba ...

. It is assumed that the same model book was used in each case. There has been speculation that the Master of the Playing Cards worked on the Giant Bible, and may also have been an associate of Gutenberg, though there is no hard evidence. The Princeton copy of the Gutenberg Bible seems to have been decorated by a different artist than the Giant Bible.

Notes

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External links

Giant Bible of Mainz
Library of Congress Bible Collection.
The Gutenberg Bible and the Giant Bible of Mainz
webcast by Mark G. Dimunation and Daniel P. De Simone Individual Bibles Mainz Vulgate manuscripts 15th-century biblical manuscripts 15th-century illuminated manuscripts