BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit: Bible Collection

DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit: Bible Collection:

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Description of Pictures: Library of Congress Bible Collection
Ongoing exhibition, opened April 11, 2008.
In the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, two monumental Bibles face each other as if in dialogue: one, the Giant Bible of Mainz, signifies the end of the handwritten book—and the other, the Gutenberg Bible, marks the beginning of the printed book and the explosion of knowledge and creativity it would engender. This exhibition explores the significance of the two Bibles, and, through an interactive presentation, the relationship between the Mainz Bible, the Gutenberg Bible, and sixteen selected Bibles from the Library’s collections.

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[1] LOCBIB_150117_07.JPG	[2] LOCBIB_150117_08.JPG	[3] LOCBIB_150117_12.JPG
[4] LOCBIB_150117_22.JPG	[5] LOCBIB_150117_26.JPG	[6] LOCBIB_150117_33.JPG
[7] LOCBIB_150117_40.JPG	[8] LOCBIB_150117_42.JPG	[9] LOCBIB_150117_46.JPG
[10] LOCBIB_150117_48.JPG	[11] LOCBIB_150117_56.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. LOCBIB_150117_08.JPG: The Giant Bible of Mainz: The Giant Bible is composed of 459 vellum skin leaves, each measuring 22 x 16 inches. The pages are fully ruled in faint brown ink, which served as guides for the scribe as he wrote out the text. The text is organized in two columns of sixty lines per page, and the letter forms employed by the scribe are large, erect, laterally compressed black letter forms. These forms were common in manuscripts produced in the middle and lower regions of the Rhine River but was not exclusive to Mainz. Two tones of black ink were used for the text, and the chapter headings and paragraphs were highlighted with alternating red and blue ink in both volumes. The manuscript is bound in full contemporary pigskin, without decoration. The text block is secured by nine cords with head and tail bands of red, white, and green silk. The scribe who created the manuscript recorded his progress by writing the specific date when he began and finished a particular section of the Bible. He began his work on April 4, 1452, and ended on July 9, 1453 -- fifteen months after beginning the project. The most distinguishing characteristic of the Giant Bible are the illuminations that embellish the text. The two volumes are decorated with patterned initial letters, historiated initials (large letters that contain an identifiable scene or figures), and gilt-burnished initials. Finely crafted decorative borders are found on five pages of the first volume. These borders are adorned with a branch, vine, and floral pattern that acts as a framework supporting artistic renderings of rabbits, hunters, stags, princesses, bears, and the like, all exquisitely designed and painted in bright primary colors. These border designs are the chief evidence that link the Giant Bible to the city of Mainz and are continuously being studied by experts on medieval illuminated manuscripts.
2. LOCBIB_150117_12.JPG: The Giant Bible of Mainz was purchased by Lessing J. Rosenwald and gifted to the Library of Congress on April 4, 1952, five hundred years after the manuscript was begun. The Giant Bible originally belonged to Heinrich von Stockheim, a curator at the Cathedral of Mainz and his inscription appears on the first leaf of the manuscript. It remained in the Cathedral of Mainz until 1631, when the Bible was seized by King Gustavus Adolphus II of Sweden as a prize of war. The King gave the Bible to Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, a member of his military guard who died in 1639. The Bible passed down through members of the duke's family until 1951, when Rosenwald purchased it through the bookseller H.P. Kraus for the Library of Congress.
3. LOCBIB_150117_26.JPG: The Gugenberg Bible: The Gutenberg Bible is the first great book printed in Western Europe from movable metal type. It is therefore a monument that marks a turning point in the art of bookmaking and consequently in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern world. Gutenberg's invention of the mechanical printing press made it possible for the accumulated knowledge of the human race to become the common property of every person who knew how to read -- an immense forward step in the emancipation of the human mind. The printing of the Bible was probably completed late in 1455 at Mainz, Germany. Johann Gutenberg, who lived from about 1400 to about 1468, is generally credited for inventing the process of making uniform and interchangeable metal types and for solving the many problems of finding the right materials and methods for printing. This Bible, with its noble Gothic type richly impressed on the page, is recognized as a masterpiece of fine printing and craftsmanship and is all the more remarkable because it was undoubtedly one of the very first books to emerge from the press. The text of the Gutenberg Bible is the Latin translation known as the "Vulgate," which was made by St. Jerome in the fourth century. The Bible is printed throughout in double columns, for the most part, with forty-two lines to a page. The capital letters and headings are ornamented by hand in color. The three volumes are in white pigskin bindings, which date from the sixteenth century. The Library of Congress copy is printed entirely on vellum, a fine parchment made from animal skin, and is one of only three perfect vellum copies known to exist. The others are at the Bibliothèque
4. LOCBIB_150117_48.JPG: Nationale and the British Library. For nearly five centuries the Bible was in the possession of the Benedictine Order in their monasteries of St. Blasius and St. Paul in Austria. Along with other fifteenth-century books, it was purchased from Dr. Otto Vollbehr by an act of Congress in 1930.
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Description of Subject Matter: Library of Congress Bible Collection
Ongoing exhibition, opened April 11, 2008.
In the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, two monumental Bibles face each other as if in dialogue: one, the Giant Bible of Mainz, signifies the end of the handwritten book—and the other, the Gutenberg Bible, marks the beginning of the printed book and the explosion of knowledge and creativity it would engender. This exhibition explores the significance of the two Bibles, and, through an interactive presentation, the relationship between the Mainz Bible, the Gutenberg Bible, and sixteen selected Bibles from the Library’s collections.
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