A thousand small parts. A new way to share knowledge.
This interactive diagram explains the construction of a late-medieval printed book. It is not a scan of a specific Gutenberg Bible. The binding, sewing pattern, dimensions, and press are simplified: surviving copies were decorated and bound individually, and many were rebound.
The page view uses illustrative marks, not a transcription. Most pages have two columns of 42 lines, but early pages vary. Paper and vellum copies survive. Gutenberg’s achievement brought together movable metal type, ink, and a press in mid-15th-century Europe; printing had a much earlier history in East Asia.