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Dziatzko concludes that this latter edition was the product of the Gutenberg-Fust confederation, and that Gutenberg may have produced the thirty-six line Bible more or less pari passu, either alone or in partnership with (perhaps) Pfister. An examination of the paper used in printing the two books points to the conclusion that there were substantial means available for the production of the forty-two line Bible, while the thirty-six line seems to show many separate purchases of small amounts of different papers.

It is impossible to assign any date for the commencement of the thirty-six line Bible. Fust had clearly nothing to do with it, and the type may have been made and some sheets printed before the partnership for printing the forty-two line Bible was entered into in 1450. The largeness of the type and consequent lesser number of lines to the page points to an early date, for the tendency was always to increase the number of lines to the page and economise paper. Thus we find that when the first gathering of the forty-two line Bible had been printed, which has only forty lines to the page, the type was recast, so as to have the same face of letter on a smaller body; and with this type the page was made to contain forty-two lines to the page.