6. [LATIN BIBLE]. 2 vols.
Printed on vellum. Mainz: Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer, 14 August
1462.
Fust and
Schoeffer’s two-volume Latin Bible, dated 1462, was the fourth edition of
the holy scriptures. The end of each volume featured Fust and Schoeffer’s
printer’s mark, which quickly became the most
recognized trademark in fifteenth-century printing. In this handsome
edition, Fust and Schoeffer continued their tradition of printing in black,
red, and blue. Although they discontinued the production of large
two-colored initials, they printed the headings to each book in red and many
of the chapter initials and numerals in red or blue. At the beginning of
Psalms, shown in volume I, the headings and the two-line initial Q were
printed in red along with the black text in a single pull of the press. All
of the other red and blue initials were added by hand.
In most copies of
the 1462 Bible, folio 51 in volume II contained two major typographic errors
that required corrections in manuscript. First, the beginning of the left
column omitted several words of Isaiah 58:4-5, “clamor vester. Numquid
tale est ieiunium quod elegi,” forcing the corrector to write these
words at the bottom of the preceding page:

Second, the first two
lines of the right column on f. 51 were printed out of sequence, so that a
corrector had to add the letters “b, a, c” to indicate their proper order.
Most of the misprinted copies, including Bridwell Library’s, were corrected
by a single scribe, likely Peter Schoeffer himself.
