Second major book printed with movable type in the West
The Mainz Psalter was the second major book printed with
movable type in the West;[1] the first was the
Gutenberg Bible. It is a
psalter commissioned by the
Mainz archbishop in 1457. The Psalter introduced several innovations: it was the first book to feature a printed date of publication, a printed
colophon, two sizes of type, printed decorative initials, and the first to be printed in three colours.[1] The colophon also contains the first example of a
printer's mark.[2] It was the first important publication issued by
Johann Fust and
Peter Schoeffer following their split from
Johannes Gutenberg.
Description
The Psalter combines printed text with two-colour
woodcuts: since both woodcuts and movable print are relief processes, they could be printed together on the same press. The Psalter is printed using black and red inks, with the smaller initials in red. The larger coloured capitals are done by hand in blue and red inks.[3] Some initials combine printing and hand-drawing, and according to Mayumi Ikeda, some even include elements of
intaglioengraving. These capitals were partly the work of the artisan known as the Fust master, who later also worked for Fust and Schöffer on the 1462 Bible.[1] The musical score accompanying the psalms was provided in
manuscript, and may have been the model for the type style.[3] Printing in two colours, although feasible on the moveable press of Gutenberg's time (as illustrated by the Mainz Psalter), was apparently abandoned soon afterward as being too time-consuming, as few other examples of such a process are extant.[4]
Two versions were printed, the short issue and long issue. The short has 143 leaves, and the long has 175 and was intended for use in the
diocese of Mainz. All surviving copies and fragments are on
vellum, and it is not known if any paper copies were printed.[5] At least one copy was still being used in services in a monastery in the mid-eighteenth century.[6]
Date
The Psalter is the earliest European book with a printed date of publication, though not the first printed book to feature a date associated with its production: in August 1456 the binder and
rubricator of a copy of the Gutenberg Bible added handwritten dates to show when these tasks were completed.[7]
The colophon can be translated as follows:
This volume of the Psalms, adorned with a magnificence of capital letters and clearly divided by rubrics, has been fashioned by a mechanical process of printing and producing characters, without use of a pen, and it was laboriously completed, for God's Holiness, by Joachim Fust, citizen of Mainz, and Peter Schoeffer of
Gernsheim, on
Assumption Eve [August 14] in the year of Our Lord, 1457.[8]
New editions, using the same type, were printed in 1459 (dated August 29), 1490, 1502 (Schöffer's last publication) and 1516.
Surviving copies
It is "the second printed book ever published, and the first with rubricated (red as well as black) printing". There are only ten copies in existence, and as such, this book is rarer than the Gutenberg Bible.[9]
Many fragments also survive.[5] The ten known copies of the 1457 edition are listed below:
^
abcIkeda, Mayumi (2010). "The first experiments in printing at the Fust-Schöffer press". In Wagner, Bettina; Reed, Marcia (eds.). Early Printed Books as Material Objects: Proceedings of the Conference Organized by the Ifla Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Munich, 19–21 August 2009. De Gruyter Sur. pp. 39–49.
ISBN978-3-11-025324-5.
^Roberts, William (1893).
Printers' Marks, by. London: George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden, & New York.