Gutenberg-Bibel#

Gutenberg Bible, 42-line printed Bible, the most outstanding work of the early printing craft at Mainz in terms of technology and beauty of design, finished in the early summer of 1456. 47 copies are still extant throughout the world, 12 of which are on parchment. The monasteries of Melk and St. Paul im Lavanttal had to sell their Bibles to raise money in the interwar period. Today they are kept in the Yale University Library (New Haven, USA) and in the Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA.

The history of the copy in the Austrian National Library (Ink. 3. B. 14) can be traced back to the 15th century in Tirol, where it was owned by Benedikt Wegmacher (d. 1490), chamberlain of Archduke Sigmund of Tirol. In 1783 it came, via Innsbruck, to the court library in Vienna.