Biblia. (German)

1483

1483

H 3137*; BMC II 424; ISTC ib00632000; GW 4303

DeBeer (Special Collections) Ge/ 1483/ B

Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 17 February 1483

n/a

Full page (f.36a), detail colour woodcut (f.36b and f. 36a).

Anton Koberger of Nuremberg (b. about 1445; d.1513) was a goldsmith before he became a printer and bookseller. He began printing about 1470, his first dated book being Alcinous's Disciplinarum Platonis epitome, 24 November 1472. In 1483, he produced a German Bible and in 1484, the first book printed in the Hungarian language. Koberger was primarily a publisher, an entrepreneur par excellence, who, by 1500 had produced as many as 200 works and sold them through the various agencies he had in cities. He employed traveling salesmen, and issued one of the first advertising circulars. According to statements, Koberger had some twenty-four presses operating a day for his printing and employed over a hundred workmen.

Ninth edition of the Bible in German, the first to be printed in Nuremberg, and the only German edition printed by Koberger. The text, derived from Zainer's first German Bible of 1475-6, was used in all succeeding pre-Lutheran High German editions. According to Darlow and Moule (1911) 'Koberger's Bible professes to be, and apparently is, "a revision made with great diligence."' The 100 woodcuts, attributed to the 'Master of the Cologne Bibles,' were first used in the Cologne printer Heinrich Quentell's two Low German Bibles of c. 1478 (Goff B-636 and 637), with which Koberger appears to have been associated. He had the types cut specially for this edition of approximately 1000-1500 copies, which were sold in three forms, uncolored, colored in 3 tints only, and fully colored.

One leaf (paper) from the Nuremberg Bible: Exodus, Chap. X and Chap XI, the Israelites in Egypt
Gothic type;
Printed in double columns on both sides of the page; 402 x 284 mm (fol).
Woodcuts and initials are hand-coloured.

1. Esmond de Beer
2. Otago University Library