The 500-Year Story of a Gutenberg Bible And Everyone Who Owned It

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2019

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For rare-book collectors, an original copy of the Gutenberg Bible—of which there are fewer than 50 in existence (and which can sell for $100 million)—represents the ultimate prize. One copy, Number 45, passed through the hands of Johannes Gutenberg, monks, an earl, billionaires, bibliophiles, the Worcestershire sauce king, and a nuclear physicist before arriving at its ultimate resting place, in a steel vault in Tokyo. Estelle Doheny, the first woman collector to add the book to her library and its last private owner, tipped the Bible onto a trajectory that forever changed our understanding of the first mechanically printed book.

In today's episode I'm speaking with Margaret Leslie Davis, author of The Lost Gutenberg: The Astounding Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey. She focuses on two protagonists in her story: the copy of the Gutenberg Bible itself and Doheny, a California heiress who emerged from scandal to chase it. We discussed the value we place on rare books, and the shifting wealth and power of those who hunt them.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The history of the Popes of Rome and Christianity reaches into nearly every aspect of history.
0:06.4	In the history of the Papacy podcast, we step over the rope.
0:10.0	We dive into, discover more about the people events and background that define the influence
0:15.8	of the Popes of Rome and church not only on the west, but the world.
0:20.4	To start listening now, go to ParthenonPodcast.com or search for history of the Papacy on your
0:27.4	favorite podcast platform.
0:57.4	Welcome to the History Unplugged Podcast.
1:07.4	The unscripted show that celebrates unsung heroes, myth busts historical lies, and rediscoveres
1:14.2	the forgotten stories that changed our world.
1:17.4	I'm your host, Scott Rank.
1:20.4	If you're a rare book collector, the holy grail of rare books is a Gutenberg Bible.
1:30.9	There were only an estimated 160 to 180 copies of the Bible printed in a 3-5-year period,
1:36.8	and only about 50 exists today.
1:38.7	One of those weighs 14 pounds, because it has almost 1,300 pages, with each page having
1:44.2	2,500 pieces of type.
1:46.0	If you happen to have a Gutenberg in your library, it can sell for about $100 million.
1:51.6	And also, there's an incredible story behind each Gutenberg, because the people who've
1:55.8	owned it have typically been very wealthy or powerful, so it's traded in hands between
2:00.2	wealthy habits of a monastery, in the late middle ages, to lords and noblemen, and then
2:05.2	down in the modern era to tycoons and oil barons, and today collectors at university libraries.
2:11.8	Today I'm speaking with author Margaret Davis on the particular history of one Gutenberg
2:16.4	Bible, copy 45, and the impact it's had on the people that owned it.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Unplugged, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Unplugged and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.