An Early "Ready to Use" Bible

Biblia latina.
Basel: Bernhard Richel, [not after 1474]. (Prothro B-116)

Bernhard Richel’s c. 1474 edition of the Bible was the first to provide two “helps” for recognizing parallel passages: the Eusebian Canon tables (a feature of thirteenth-century Bibles) and marginal references. It was also the first edition to include the tractate of Menardus (a Carthusian of Eisenach), a summary and interpretative guide for each book of the Bible. Richel was also the first printer to specialize in “ready-to-use” Bibles. Whereas Gutenberg’s successors in Mainz had printed part of their 1462 Bible with red rubrics and small initials in red or blue, Richel’s Bible included red rubrics and initials printed with ornamental woodblocks, so that rubrication by hand was unnecessary.