Balbi, Catholicon, 1460 (1r)

One of the first books to be printed, the 1460 Catholicon continues to be surrounded by uncertainty about exactly who made it and what processes were used. Although it was once assumed that Gutenberg printed the book, that is now doubted. And recent theory is that the book was not printed with individual pieces of movable type, but with cast two-line slugs of type, thus explaining the near exact later impressions printed in 1469 and 1472.

Bible, Church Slavic, 1581 (fol. 1r)

The opening of Genesis is marked off with an elaborate woodcut headpiece, clearly separating the text of the Bible from the prefatory materials.

Bible, Church Slavic, 1581 (fol. 78v)

The colophon identifies Ivan Fedorov of Moscow as the printer (his device appears just above the colophon) and that it was completed in 1581 on August 12 in Ostroh. Like the text above it, the colophon is in parallel columns of Greek and Church Slavic.

Bible, Church Slavic, 1581 (title page)

The Ostroh Bible is the first complete edition of the Bible printed in Cyrillic, made at the behest of Prince Konstantin Ostrogski.

Bible, English, 1611 (A1r)

The King James Bible uses a complex typography to signal which words or phrases are not from the source material but have been added in translation (those in roman type), printed notes in roman type for cross referencing between different books, printed notes in italic for translation notes, and headnotes for each chapter providing summaries to help with quick navigation.

Bible, English, 1611 (πA1r)

The title page for the Authorized version of the Bible is completely engraved, including the title and imprint information, by Cornelius Boel, whose name appears in the bottom left of the image. (This version is more commonly known as the King James Bible, since James authorized it to be translated and placed in all churches.)

Bible, Polyglot, 1657 (T1v)

An example of a "polyglot" Bible---a Bible printed in its earliest languages and translations. On this leaf you can see texts in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and Syriac, each in their own place and separated by hand-drawn red ruling.

Boethius, Arithmetica, 1492 (2a1r)

This edition of Boethius uses a title label on the first page of the book to provide a quick identification of the text.

Boethius, Arithmetica, 1492 (2a1v)

The text of this edition begins "Incipiunt duo libri de Arthimetica" but the title of the book is taken not from this phrase, but from the title label on the previous page. The space for the initial letter, like others in this volume, has been left unfilled.

Boethius, Arithmetica, 1492 (2l8r)

On this last leaf of text, the printer has included both a colophon identifying who printed the book and a register of the last words printed on the first four leaves in each gathering of the two-volume set.