First Bible in German

[German Bible].
[Strasbourg: Johann Mentelin,
before 27 June 1466]. (06164)

Johannes Mentelin (c. 1410–1478), the first printer outside of Gutenberg’s Mainz to use moveable type, produced a Latin Bible in Strasbourg in 1460. His third book, the German Bible exhibited here, was the first edition of the Bible printed in any language other than Latin. The first of seventeen German editions of the Bible published prior to Martin Luther’s translation, it also preceded the first Italian Bible by five years, the first French and Spanish editions by a decade, and the first complete English edition by sixty-nine years.