Around 1455 Johannes Gutenberg completed the first major book printed in Europe with movable type. About how many copies of his Bible did he print?
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Answer
About 180 copies
Fewer than 50 survive today, only about 20 of them complete, and some copies were printed on calfskin rather than paper.
How to estimate it
The print run is known from letters of the time, but a production check fits. Each Bible has 1,286 pages. Suppose 4 presses worked 250 days a year for 2 years, each making about 120 impressions a day, a slow pace for a brand new craft: 4 × 500 × 120 = 240,000 pages. 240,000 / 1,286 = 187 copies. Historians estimate about 180 copies.
Source: Gutenberg Museum Mainz; British Library
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