Encountering Gutenberg
This past week has been filled with amazing experiences, and such little time to record them. On Thursday afternoon I took 15 of my students to the Germany State Library here in Berlin, which has a massive collections of rare books. We had the pleasure of a private talk on the history and evolution of Bible manuscripts from the 9th century to Gutenberg. We were shown a series of books created by monks and professional scribes with meticulous precision, many of which were amazingly illuminated at the beginning of each chapter. Almost all of them were written on parchment, some of them still retained their original bindings, and all of them were clear and well preserved despite their age (550 - 1000 years). We were able to get up very close to these books, and even touched a few, a treat that I will probably never be lucky enough to experience again. The scale of the books changed as more people needed access to them. The first and oldest book presented was huge; maybe 25 pounds with a thick covers and straps to hold it shut. The books got smaller and smaller, finally reaching pocket size around 1300 (it would be a big pocket though). The Bibles were often chained to a lectern to prevent theft, and many of the books had rust stains on the back page from the hardware. It occurred to me that the evolution of these early manuscripts follows a similar pattern as the evolution of computer technology, which started very large and scaled down to allow more people to use it and carry it with them as needed.
The icing on the cake was a parchment printed Gutenberg Bible. There are a number of paper printed Bibles, but just 5 parchment copies in existence, and we got close enough to breath on it! The amazing thing about this Bible is the quality of the printing, despite the fact that Gutenberg had little experience (no one in Europe did, he was the first European printer). He had done some initial printing samples prior to printing his Bibles, but none of them survived to reveal his learning process. The pages are even in color, the ink does not bleed, and the registration does not seem to shift. Gutenberg sold them with no binding, just in folded choirs so the patron could have the book bound to their specifications by another craftsperson. The books were not illuminated via printing, but did leave space for the patron to hire an artist to render illuminations if they could afford it.
We saw so many beautiful books that day, but when our paleographic guide plopped Gutenberg on the table I literally sang. The entire narrative can be listened to here. The presentation was easily the most exciting thing on the trip so far. Gutenberg changed the way we think and communicate. It was such an honor to see the document that made it all happen.