The Gutenberg Bible the first major work printed in Europe takes
its name from Johann Gutenberg, a native of Mainz, Germany, who
began experimenting with casting movable or reusable type in the
1440s. By about 1450 he had perfected a technique that allowed
him to produce enough type to print small grammars and other
ephemeral works, and soon afterward he began work on a full
Bible. With financial backing from Johann Fust, a wealthy Mainz
lawyer, Gutenberg and his workmen produced some 160 or 180
copies of the large folio Bible; about a quarter of the total
were printed on vellum (fine parchment made from calfskin) and
the remainder on paper imported from northern Italy. We know
that the Bible was finished by March 1455, when Aeneas Silvius
Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, described it in a letter to a
friend, saying that the script was large and easily read even
without glasses. Each copy consists of nearly 1,300 pages,
measuring approximately 16 by 12 inches (400 x 300 mm). Most of
the Bibles were bound by t