Читать книгу Early Printed Books онлайн

28 страница из 42

ssss1 The colophon of this book says: ... ‘per Petrum de Gernssheym in urbe Moguntina cum suis capitalibus absque calami exaratione effigiatus;’ and Mr. Hessels translates ‘cum suis capitalibus,’ ‘with his capital letters,’ a rendering which is surely impossible.

We may safely say of the forty-two line Bible, that it could not have been begun before about August 1450 (when Gutenberg entered into partnership with Fust), and that it could not have been finished later than August 1456 (the rubricated date of the Paris copy).

As regards the thirty-six line Bible, M. Dziatzko has brought forward, after much patient study, some remarkable evidence. He proves, from an examination of the text, that the thirty-six line Bible was set up, at any rate in part, from the forty-two line Bible. One copy survives which betrays this; for the compositor has passed from the last word of leaf 7 to the first word of leaf 9. In another place he has misread the beginning of a chapter, and included the last two words of the one before, which is explained by the arrangement of the text in the forty-two line edition.