and devoted the first three or four years to perfecting the movable
types. But I doubt if it could have been much earlier than 1455
when he finally completed the first copy. In all probability he was
assisted by his friend, Johann Fust, who supplied the money with which
Gutenberg bought materials for a press and types. Aided, too, by
Fust’s son-in-law, Peter Schöffer, they brought eternal fame to the
name of their already famous city, Mainz. Later many apprentices from
Gutenberg’s and Fust’s atelier went southward to France, Italy, and
Spain, where they established the first presses in the great cities of
Paris, Rome, Florence, and Seville. These specimens of early printing
are known to the specialists as incunabula, or books representing the
cradle of printing. The term has been extended so as to include all
works printed before 1500.
[Illustration: FIRST PAGE OF CICERO, “DE OFFICIIS,” PRINTED ON VELLUM,
MAINZ, 1465, WITH MINIATURE OF CICERO]
Some authorities have questioned the claim of Gutenberg as the
inventor of printing. Coster of Haarlem has been put forth as the real
discoverer. There are fragments of early printing with Gothic types
that students of typography have dubbed Costeriana. I cannot enter here
into a discussion of this controversy. Perhaps both sides are right. At
any rate, I have read reams and reams on the subject and have become
sadder if not wiser at each perusal. Mademoiselle Pellechet, a
celebrated bibliophile of the nineteenth century, studied the question
deeply. In the end, as bibliography is a science in which women have
distinguished themselves, a woman will probably say the last word!
Perhaps the best person to give an opinion on the subject to-day is
Miss Belle da Costa Greene, the learned director of the Pierpont Morgan
Library.
When I visited England two or three years ago I was invited to
Windsor Castle to see the beautiful library belonging to King George.
The librarian, the Honorable John Fortescue, the authority on the
history of the English Army, showed me many magnificent volumes and
manuscripts. Among them was that glorious rarity known to the initiated
as the 1457 Psalter, printed on vellum by Fust and Schöffer. There are
in the royal library many works of great historical importance, and I
listened with delight to his fascinating stories relating to them.
Often during the afternoon I stood before the windows of the library
to look out upon the vista of green lawns, the winding Thames, and
Eton College a few miles in the distance. I thought of Thomas Gray and
others who had known so intimately the country about me, of famous men
whose names were connected with famous books, and a sudden desire came
over me--a desire to see and pay homage to the most beautiful book in
the world. By the time I was ready to leave the Castle I had decided to
motor over to Eton.
When I arrived I immediately went to the library attendant and asked
him to let me see the Gutenberg Bible. This copy in the library of
Eton College is to my mind the most noble specimen of all. It is in its
contemporary binding of old leather decorated with the original metal
clasps and bosses, and it bears the name of the binder, Johann Fogel,
who goes down in history as the binder of the first printed book.
At the very time of my visit to Eton the newspapers in England were
running editorial comment about several purchases I had just made
privately and at auction sales. They complained I was taking away the
greatest monuments of literature from their shores. The old attendant
at Eton, noting my enthusiasm as I turned the pages of this beautiful
Bible, said to me, in a tone tickled with pride, “Wouldn’t that Doctor
Rosenbach like to carry off this Gutenberg Bible too?”
Gutenberg’s Bible was set up from the Latin manuscript version
designated by scholars as the Vulgate. Previous to its issue most
manuscript Bibles were written either in Greek or Hebrew. Now, for the
first time, it appeared available to all who could read, translated
into Latin, the “vulgar” or common language of the Church.
[Illustration: BELLE DA COSTA GREENE]
During the past few years I have purchased four copies of the Gutenberg
Bible. The first, at the Hoe sale in 1912, was an edition printed on
paper, and with Alfred Quaritch I later sold it to the late P. A. B.
Widener, of Philadelphia. It is now in the collection of his son, Mr.
Joseph Widener. The second copy, in a superb binding by Fogel, and now
in the greatest private collection of Bibles in this country, came
from the library of the late James W. Ellsworth, of Chicago. It was
in a strange manner that I bought this copy. I was halfway across the
Atlantic. Before sailing I had been treating for its purchase, along
with the rest of his splendid library. I completed the transaction by
wireless. It was thus that the fifteenth century and the twentieth
met in mid-ocean! To buy a Gutenberg Bible by radio--it seemed almost
sacrilegious.
And this recalls another story. I met for the first time aboard one of
the great liners a distinguished collector, a man of great taste and
judgment. He said to me in the smoking room, fifteen hundred miles out
of New York, “Have you a set of the four folios of Shakespeare?”
“Yes,” I replied, “a fine one, the Trowbridge set; at least, I have if
it has not been sold.”
He asked me to verify it by wireless, which I did, and on receipt of
the message he purchased it in mid-Atlantic. No man that ever lived
had the prophetic foresight of Shakespeare; yet even he could not have
pictured such a thing. And the price? That is still another story.
I purchased another Gutenberg Bible, printed on paper, at the Carysfort
sale in London, four years ago, and paid £9500--a little less than
$50,000--for it. To-day it rests, with other great examples of printing
and literature, in the library of Mr. Carl H. Pforzheimer, in New York
City.
The Melk copy, which I bought at the Anderson Galleries last year,
was as exciting an acquisition as I have ever made. Of course there
were many collectors and dealers besides myself who yearned to own
it. The price I paid for it--$106,000--was like the first shot of the
Revolution, heard around the world. Mrs. E. S. Harkness bought this
copy from me and most graciously bestowed it upon the Library of Yale
University, in memory of Mrs. Stephen V. Harkness. It is certainly one
of the greatest gifts ever made to a university in this country. So
many copies have passed into public institutions during the past few
years, it is unlikely that many more perfect ones can come into the
market. What will its price be in the future? One could as well stem
the tides as to block its steady and irresistible march. It is only
a matter of time. To-day it sells for more than $100,000; more than
$1,000,000 will some day be a reasonable price for it.
Although much stress has been laid upon the value and rarity of the
Gutenberg forty-two-line Bible, and it is generally thought to be the
most valuable in the world, I believe the thirty-six-line Bible (known
as the Pfister, or Bamberg, Bible) is infinitely rarer. It also was the
work of a Mainz printing press, and was probably made under Gutenberg’s
supervision, after he had finished the one which now bears his name. In
the old days it was thought to have been printed before the Gutenberg
Bible, but scholars have proved by long study that mistakes are made
which could only have been the result of using Gutenberg’s for copy,
instead of one of the written texts. There are only fourteen copies
of this thirty-six-line Bible known; four are in England, seven in
Germany, one is in Belgium, one in France, and another in Austria. Yet
in all this broad land there is not one copy. But I rejoice in having a
single leaf of it, which, I assure you, I prize greatly.
Probably the most beautiful Bible after the Gutenberg is in two
volumes, forming what is known as the 1462 Bible. It is the first one
that is dated, and was issued at Mainz, printed by Fust and Schöffer,
August 14, 1462. The copies on vellum seem to be more numerous than
those on paper. I bought the last copy, belonging to the Earl of
Carysfort, for £4800. It is not only the first dated Bible but the
earliest example of a book formally divided into two volumes. But it is
not considered a rare edition of the Bible in any sense of the word,
as more than sixty copies are known. In fact, we had two copies of
it at one time in our New York vault, both of which were illuminated
with grotesque birds and beasts, probably by the same artist. It is
odd that, although there are few collections of incunabula in South
America, there are two copies of this Bible in the National Library at
Rio de Janeiro.
Probably the greatest sport of all is the collecting of Bibles in
manuscript. It takes a king’s ransom to-day to secure a really fine
one. I do not mean the ordinary late-fifteenth-century ones, which
are quite common, but those executed from the ninth to the twelfth
century, especially when they are illustrated. Of course, the earliest
codices, the very foundation stones of the history of the Bible, such
as the Codex Vaticanus in Rome, the Alexandrinus in the British Museum,
and the Sinaiticus at Leningrad, are safely beyond the purse of the
richest collector. The Pierpont Morgan Library contains the finest
collection of illuminated Bibles in America. The vault at 33 East
Thirty-sixth Street, New York, is an achievement almost unequaled in
the history of collecting. It is like a view of Paradise. The latest
acquisition by Mr. J. P. Morgan of some of the Holkham manuscripts
from the library of the Earl of Leicester is a notable triumph in the
history of great libraries.
Some years ago I was talking with Mr. Henry E. Huntington in his old
library at 2 East Fifty-seventh Street, New York. I said most humbly,
although with proper pride, “How would you like to own the original
Conqueror Bible of the architect of the Tower of London?”
“There ain’t no sich animile,” quoted Mr. Huntington.
I thereupon produced from a cavernous Gladstone bag two large folio
volumes, elegantly bound in blue morocco. “This is it,” I said. The
Bible was written in the eleventh century for Gundulph, 1024-1108,
Bishop of Rochester, who came over with William the Conqueror and
later became the designer of the Tower of London. On the first leaf of
each volume the bishop had written an elaborate curse, excommunicating
anyone who should destroy, mutilate, or carry it off. When I showed Mr.
Huntington these fatal words, he said to me, with a twinkle in his eye,
“You old rogue, this applies to you, too, you know. I will take the
Bible, but without the curse!”
[Illustration: LEAF FROM AN ENGLISH BIBLICAL MANUSCRIPT OF THE NINTH
CENTURY]
I recall one day several years ago when I visited the library of the
late Sir Thomas Phillipps, at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham. His
grandson, Mr. T. FitzRoy Fenwick, and I were looking over the precious
volumes, and we talked of Sir Thomas’s ardent love of manuscripts. For
more than fifty years he had been the world’s greatest gatherer of
everything written by the hand of man. His knowledge was equal to his
love, and he succeeded in forming an unrivaled library of manuscripts,
which included some of the greatest specimens in existence. He did not
confine himself to Continental examples alone, but was the first great
collector of manuscripts relating to America. Sir Thomas Phillipps was
the patron not only of Lord Kingsborough, whose researches on Mexico
are well known, but of George Catlin, who depicted so graphically
the life of the American Indian. Mr. Fenwick, who inherited from his
grandfather his appreciation and love of fine things, and who possesses
an almost unequaled knowledge of old manuscripts, asked me if I had
ever seen a manuscript containing Anglo-Saxon writing. I said that
I had not, and he thereupon produced the Four Gospels, an English
manuscript written in West Anglia in the time of King Alfred, A.D.
850-900, which contained splendid full-page illustrations of an unusual
type. There upon the margins were characters in Anglo-Saxon, written
long before the Conqueror came to the shores of Britain.
Nothing, however, surprises me at Thirlestaine House. One day Mr.
Fenwick showed me the Liesborn Gospels, a superb manuscript made in
the ninth century for King Widekind, the only successful opponent of
Charlemagne. It was in its old binding of carved wood, and is one of
the few very early manuscripts in existence giving the name of the
scribe who wrote it.
He also showed to me the famous French Historiated Bible of the
fourteenth century, in two magnificent volumes, which contained almost
a hundred illustrations, quite in the modern manner, more like William
Blake than an artist of old Touraine. I now have these three precious
Biblical manuscripts, and I doubt whether there is a nobler assemblage
in existence.
To my mind the most inspiringly beautiful and important early Hebrew
manuscript of the Bible is that in the remarkable collection of Mr.
David Sassoon, of London. It should be reproduced in facsimile so that
all students here and abroad might study not only its unique text but
its glorious illustrations as well.
One of the great discoveries in the history of these early Bibles
occurred right here at our place in New York, seven years ago. Mr.
Sydney C. Cockerell, the great student of manuscripts, called upon me,
and I showed him six pictures from the Bible and said that they were by
a Spanish artist of the thirteenth century.
He looked at them for a moment and said, “No, they’re English!” I could
scarcely believe him, although no one knows more about manuscripts than
he. “Let me take them to my hotel and study them. I think they are the
work of the earliest known English illuminator, W. de Brailes.”
[Illustration: CARVED AND POLYCHROMED WOODEN BINDING OF THE LIESBORN
GOSPELS (IX CENTURY)]
He took them with him. If they were English they would be immensely
valuable--worth far more than I, old Captain Kidd, asked for them. You
bet I awaited anxiously his return.
Finally he showed up one day, and said, “The only trouble with you,
Doctor Rosenbach, is that you do not use the eyes God gave you.” Lo and
behold, he pointed to the halo on one of the saints, and there in neat
characters were the magic words: “W. de Brail(es) me f(e)cit.” It was
one of the greatest attributions ever made by a scholar, and they were,
now beyond even the shadow of a doubt, the work of the very artist he
had named. According to Mr. Eric G. Millar: “There has never been a
more triumphant vindication of connoisseurship.” These six drawings
are now in England in the collection of Mr. A. Chester Beatty, who has
one of the choicest libraries of Oriental and European manuscripts.
Every year when I go to England I renew, through the kind offices
of Mr. Beatty, my acquaintance with the spirit of that doughty old
illuminator, W. de Brailes.
Very few forgers have had the courage to try their hands at duplicating
Biblical manuscripts. I have always been amazed at the enormous amount
of self-confidence a man by the name of Shapira must have had when
he offered the British Museum several important-looking manuscript
scrolls. They contained the text of the Pentateuch, and were, he
claimed, from the very hands of Moses! Of course, every expert and
noted scholar who happened to be in London at the time went to see
these scrolls, which were placed on exhibition at the Museum. They
were scrutinized carefully, admired as works of curiosity, but no one
believed for a moment that they were genuine. Any Semitic scholar knows
perfectly well that writing for literary purposes was unknown at the
time of Moses. Yet even though Shapira had used an alphabet belonging
to a much later period in history, his handiwork was decidedly
interesting. Finally he was informed that his offerings were considered
a fraud. He left England bitterly disappointed and went to Belgium. Not
long after he arrived there the continental newspapers announced that
Shapira had committed suicide. Even then, when certain of his victims
read the lines, they wrote to the papers protesting that the man could
not be dead, and openly accused him of fabrication even in connection
with his own demise. Such is fame!
The most interesting experiments in the history of pictorial art were
the attempts to produce picture books for the use of the middle and
lower classes of Europe in the fifteenth century, most of whom could
not read. The few specimens of the Block Books, as they are called,
extant to-day, indicate they were made up of single leaves printed on
one side of the paper only. These blocks were all cut by hand from a
slab of hardwood, such as that of the pear or apple tree. When the
impressions were finally made, the pages were pasted back to back and
bound in rough parchment. It is believed by some authorities that the
earliest Block Books date from 1440, although others were undoubtedly
printed fifteen to thirty years later.
[Illustration: LEAF FROM BLOCK BOOK, FIFTEENTH CENTURY]
The _Biblia Pauperum_, or the Bible for the Poor, is one of the
most interesting examples among the block books. It is composed
almost entirely of crude illustrations with doses of text or short
explanations and sayings of the Prophets above and below the pictures,
much in the manner of the tabloids of our own time. No attempt was made
to reproduce the whole Bible or even a complete chapter. It was the
portions familiarly known to the people which were set down. Thus the
story of St. John--“Apocalypsis S. Joannis”--was one of the favorite
subjects, as was Solomon’s “Song of Songs.”
Block books are, of course, among the most desirable and the most
difficult to obtain of all the treasures of the bibliophile. Even a
single sheet torn from a block book is valuable. I recall vividly,
when in England many years ago, my first visit to an old library which
contained four perfect block books, all in magnificent condition. The
margins were uncut and, in fact, they appeared to be exactly the same
as when they left the hands of the unknown printer in the fifteenth
century. Year after year I returned to this library especially to see
them. Imagine my satisfaction and joy when I was finally rewarded by
the owner, who had decided to part with them.
There are only three great collections of block books in this country.
One may be seen at the New York Public Library; another, also in New
York, in the library founded by the late J. Pierpont Morgan; and the
third in the Huntington Library in California.
The very first type-printed book with illustrations was a Latin edition
of the _Biblia Pauperum_, printed by Albrecht Pfister, of Bamberg, in
1461. There are only two copies known: one in the John Rylands Memorial
Library at Manchester, England; the other in the French National
Library at Paris.
Savonarola, the Billy Sunday of his day, was quick to see the appeal
of block books. He had his own sermons printed and illustrated with
woodblock-printed pictures, which he distributed among his followers.
It was he who drew the masses to religion at the time when Florentine
art was almost at its peak. He converted Botticelli, caused him to
destroy all the sensuous secular pictures he painted previous to his
conversion, but happily made up for his loss by inspiring him to paint
religious subjects. What would I not give to possess the charred
remains of the Bible to which Savonarola clung when he died!
There is perhaps a greater lack of knowledge concerning old Bibles than
of any other subject pertaining to books. To make matters worse, most
people believe they have accumulated many worthwhile facts when all
they pick up is some chance misinformation. At least thirty per cent
of the 30,000 letters I receive annually are about Bibles or other
religious works, which, according to my correspondents, “have always
been in the family.” The largest number of letters come from Germany.
But among people of all nationalities the hoary idea still prevails
that age adds value to a Bible. Some people who are not interested in
any book, old or otherwise, become excited the moment they find a
Bible more than fifty years old. Clasping it to the family bosom, they
often rush to my library, either in New York or Philadelphia, buoyed up
by an inflated notion of their treasure’s value, believing they have
sighted a rainbow with a pot of real gold at the end.
Almost everyone in the world owns or has owned a Bible. It is the
one work which has been translated into every language; it is the
world’s best seller, and because of this, edition after edition has
appeared in every country. No one knows how many millions of pounds
the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have received to date in the
revenue which has always flowed into their coffers as a perquisite
on printed Bibles. The Bible rests beside one’s bed to-day in hotel
rooms throughout the country. The Gideons’ Bible is the only volume
the stealing of which is considered a virtue instead of a crime! The
Bible is a book which has touched the hearts of us all at one time or
another. When it does not appeal as a religious work its fascination
is felt in the inexhaustible fund of stories and anecdotes which have
never been matched by the contents of any secular book ever written.
Such tales as those of Joseph and his brethren, David and Goliath,
Solomon and the two mothers, will never be excelled.
A very old Bible is valuable because of its age only if it was printed
between the time of the Gutenberg edition, 1455, and the year 1476.
Although there were hundreds of editions of the Bible issued in Europe
before 1500, only a small portion of them may be considered very
valuable to-day. After 1476 Bibles must show certain characteristics to
make them sufficiently desirable to the collector’s roving eye. It goes
almost without saying that all first editions are worth something.
The first Bible printed in Italy, in France, or in Spain--these are
all of great value and rarity as well. The first Bible printed in one
of the secular languages, in the old days known as the vulgar tongues,
for instance, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Icelandic, Swedish,
Slavonic, Bohemian, or Basque, these, too, are valuable. Others are
the first printed Bible of Strasburg, issued by Mentelin before 1460;
another printed by Eggestyn in 1466; the celebrated R Bible, probably
published by Adolf Rusch in 1467 at Strasburg; the Great Bible, a
most beautiful specimen of printing, by Sweynheym and Pannartz, 1471;
and the Great French Bible, made, oddly enough, in Paris five years
later by three Germans: Gering, Kranz, and Friburger. Hebrew being the
original language of the Old Testament Scriptures, it is only natural
that the first printed in the Hebrew language--Soncino 1488--should be
one of the cornerstones of any collection of Bibles.
One of the most glorious productions of the Bible is the Jenson
edition, printed in Venice in 1479. I have a superb copy on vellum,
with a special page of dedication to Pope Sixtus IV. All Bibles with
dedications to or from noted persons immediately become significant in
the estimation of the book lover.
Sometime after the printing of the Vulgate version, certain editors,
shrewd enough to discern the public mind, offered a Bible complete with
three versions. In the centre of the page they printed the Vulgate,
while on one side a Hebrew text was printed, and on the other, a Greek.
But it is to the first English printer, William Caxton, that the
honor should go for the first printed appearance of any part of the
Scriptures in English. Caxton came from Kent, and in his youth went
to Bruges and Cologne to learn the trade of printer. He was the first
to introduce printing into England and the first to print any works
in English. He was a scholar of parts, as well as a printer with fine
taste, and himself translated into English many of the works which he
later published. In 1483 he issued the _Golden Legend_, which includes
lives of Adam, Abraham, Moses, and other characters of the Old and New
Testaments. Thus it contains nearly all of the Pentateuch and portions
of the Gospels. If this were generally known and appreciated, I feel
certain the _Golden Legend_ would approach a price more nearly like
that of the Gutenberg Bible. But as the book game is one of magic and
alchemy, this may happen unexpectedly any time.