What are Gutenberg books?

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The cradle of printing

The books printed in Europe with the Gutenberg system between 1450 and 1500 (or 1515 depending on the country) are designated by the term "incunable". The term coined in the 17th century derives from "incunabla" literally meaning "cradle" in Latin. Forty thousand books were printed, half were religious and three-quarters of them in Latin. In fact, the book does not change dramatically after 1500 but this date marks an evolution in layout and format.

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What are the characteristics?

The incunables are sheets of vellum or paper printed on both sides in codex or quarto format (the paper is folded into four hence the sheet is more easily manipulated), connected by a parchment (calf or sow) sewn behind with raised bands. These parts can sometimes be rough or gilded, marbled or painted. It was not customary to reserve a title page but instead print directly on the recto of the front page, hence the poor state of conservation of these layers. The text has Gothic lettering spanning two columns of thirty to seventy lines, which did not differ radically from the codex. Roman letters date later. Some white spaces are reserved for illumination which are sophisticated capital letters inherited from the Gothic tradition.

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The writings sometimes spreads freely between the columns. Punctuation was not employed yet, so the printer leaves blank spaces on the sandstone for miniaturist art. The rules for lower and upper case letters were also not determined so the composers put the characters wherever they wanted. However, an incunable is a fixed form in which the incipit, foliation, exipit and the signature are always in that order.

But the compositional freedom created different, unique works even within a single edition. For reasons of economy, the first drawing is never destroyed but as it often includes numerous errors, corrected throughout the printing. There will be no carbon copy. The subsequent printings will be connected with the original pages and modified pages during the printing to avoid waste.

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What are the topics?

Although books of prayer and litany dominate, the Psalter was the most wanted in the 16th century. Religion had no monopoly of incunables. The printed book provided an opportunity to disseminate  light secular works reserved for personal reading such as novels of chivalry and love or collections of poems and fables. But this inaugural period of the Renaissance was also marked by great discoveries and that invaded the books.  Eagerly

The intellectual bubble of literature involved debates, critiques, published analysis and comparison of texts. Even the printer left wide margins dedicated to handwritten notes. Note that the launch of the Book Fair was in 1480 in Frankfurt! This event was open to all, which still continues today. It was a testimony to the development of literary curiosity and the supporting market. In 1500, Aldus Manucci marked the end of Venetian incunables by publishing a leaflet by Virgil in octavo format octavo  (one sheet folded in eight): the modern book was born, the paperback is in development ...

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B42

This is not a secret code but the name that historians have given the first incunables printed by Gutenberg in 1455. This Latin Bible was presented in two volumes with over six hundred pages each and each page contained two columns of forty-two lines. The text resembles the medieval codices because it had black gothic letters. This Bible was printed with 180 copies and inaugurated the book industry and the knowledge revolution and a long list of Bibles published in all the European vernaculars. Humanists translated the texts and commissioned the prints directly to printers. Then they printed polyglot Bibles, that is to say Latin Bibles that contain at least two different language versions of a single copy. While the Church and the humanists argued the holy word, the polyglot Bible formed a good compromise between the Vulgate of St. Jerome and the Latin Bible which is considered authentic.

This book was a pioneer in publishing history and exists in only forty-eight copies; but fear not, the Bible is still the most published book in the world! How many for the other works?

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To be continued ...

Pauline Balayer (studying at Ecole du Louvre).

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