PrintWeek India receives a Gutenberg gift

The notebook covers reproduce facsimile versions of illuminated pages painted by Gisela Maschmann, who modelled her miniature paintings on a volume of Gutenberg’s ecclesiastic masterwork, the forty-two-line Bible, housed in Berliner Staatsbibliothek.

Published by Hartley & Marks Publishers, the Paperblanks’ collection is printed on acid-free sustainable forest paper. The 4x7-inch lined notebook has a beautifully rounded spine and smythe-sewn binding. It enables the notebook to open flat. The notebook has a front flap with magnetic closure provision aesthetically designed to merge with the design. It also offers a memento pouch on the inside back cover of the notebook.

The Gutenberg Bible journal series offers four products namely Genesis 7x9-inch Ultra Journal, Parabole 7x9-inch Ultra Journal, Genesis 2x7-inch Slim Journal and Parabole 2x7-inch Slim Journal.

49 copies of the two-volume Latin Bible are extant. In the 15th century Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz invented printing from movable, reproducible type, a development that transformed the face of printing and enabled the creation of the forty-two-line Bible.

Gutenberg’s invention made it possible to replicate the work of scribes who for generations had meticulously copied texts by hand.

After being printed, pages were embellished by artists who painted marvellous creations alongside the type, resulting in pages that seem almost to breathe.

Gisela Maschmann’s reproduction of one of the famous work’s pages is homage to tradition and to Gutenberg’s vision.