The St. Christopher Woodcut, 1423 The Library has fifteen block-
books and a number of block-prints, including the St Christopher
Woodcut, the only surviving example of the first piece of
European printing bearing a date, 1423 (see illustration,
right). Of the collection of incunables, 3,000 come from the
Spencer Collection, 215 were bequeathed by Richard Copley
Christie, and the remainder have been acquired from other
sources. Approximately 1,000 are of German origin, about 2,000
were printed in Italy and the remainder represent the presses of
other European countries and of England. Of the earliest type-
printed documents to which a place or date can be assigned there
are the Letters of Indulgence of Pope Nicholas V, the 36- and
42-line Bibles, the first three Mainz Psalters and in all about
50 productions of the Mainz press associated with Gutenberg,
Fust and Schöffer, several being the only recorded copies. The
Library has the only complete examples in Britain of books
printed by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg