Dec 24, 2024
Nov 20,2024
A remarkable new exhibition at Marsh's Library in Dublin offers a rare opportunity to see books printed in the decades after the invention of printing by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1450s. Olga Taranova introduces Gutenberg's Cradle below...
Marsh's Library, which houses mostly 16th-18th century books, has a relatively small collection of 75 treasured items that are more than 500 years old. Printed in the 1400s they are called incunables, from the Latin word 'incunabula' which translates as 'cradle'.
They were made in the very first printed batches after Johannes Gutenberg failed to keep secret his wine press-inspired invention and the new printing technology started to spread across the continent.
The Library's new Gutenberg’s Cradle catalogue shows all 75 of them, and the exhibition itself allows visitors to have a peak at the couple dozen volumes that demonstrate the evolution of the craftsmanship of the first printed books. The main intrigue here is to be found in discovering which texts that humans had accumulated until that point in history in their handwritten copies were deemed worthy of the fancy new printing technology in Renaissance Europe.
The first book Gutenberg decided to print was famously the Bible, to this day the most copied, translated and printed collection of texts on the planet. While there is no Bible on display in this particular exhibition, its influence on European book printing in the 15th century is generously represented in the history textbooks that all begin with an Old Testament version of the creation of the world.
More than half of the incunables in the library are the writings by all-time bestselling Christian theologians like Saint Augustine of Hippo and Saint John Chrysostom. The most featured author among them is Pope Gregory I, with seven copies of five separate titles in the library. Contemporary of prophet Muhammad, Gregory the Great lived after the fall of Roman Empire, during the period of the Barbarian migrations and the earliest Muslim conquests. His most notable works, Dialogues and Moralia, were written largely to assure the Christians that God had not forsaken them. The founder of the medieval papacy, he is considered by scholars to be the uniting link between the Roman and Germanic worlds, East and West, the ancient and medieval periods in European history.
These priceless books, some of them holding the texts important to Europeans for a couple of thousand consecutive years, are still cherished in Dublin's first public library.
After centuries of reading only lavishly decorated manuscripts the readers expected those exquisite treats for the eyes in their printed volumes as well. The first printers used to leave a blank space for the first letter of the title page, paragraph or a chapter to be decorated by hand after the book was printed, in order to stimulate the sales of the multiplying printed copies.
Other than the Bible-related content, the 15th century Europeans rushed to print their favourite handwritten copies of the ancient Roman writers and philosophers, such as Ovid's Fasti and Juvenal’s Satyrae. There was a renewed interest in the Roman authors’ works during the Renaissance. A new and at-the-time slightly strange looking Roman font was used by the printers for these texts. The majority of the earliest printed books were made to imitate the manuscript style that readers had been used to - the heavy-bodied Gothic font with spiky letters still associated with the Middle Ages. The new book producers, however, gradually switched to the clean and simple Roman font as it was easier to make.
The library’s oldest printed book is Cicero’s Letters to Friends written between 62 to 43 BC and printed in Milan in 1472. One of the most eloquent writers in the Latin language, Cicero is still on the high school curriculum in Italy with this significant text. He composed most of these letters during an interesting time in any country’s life – a very short window between Republic and Dictatorship.
These priceless books, some of them holding the texts important to Europeans for a couple of thousand consecutive years, are still cherished in Dublin’s first public library. They are the tales of Roman and other rulers of various degrees of wisdom or cruelty, woven together with the stories of the Old and the New Testaments, with the legends of the mischievous pagan and Greek gods, and driven by the passion for beauty and excellence.
This is Europe, right here.
Olga Taranova is a Visitor Services Officer and Curator at Marsh's Library in Dublin. Gutenberg’s Cradle is at Marsh’s Library until February 2025 - find out more here.
