Gutenberg Bible from the collections of the Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum
A lost treasureThe most valuable object in the collections of the Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum was, up until 1945, a copy of the 42-page Gutenberg Bible, the first important incunable, printed on parchment, featuring decorative miniatures. Heinrich Klemm acquired the Bible in 1878.
Historia animalium by Conrad Gessner
Beasts and real existing creatures, 1551-1558Historia animalium, a work by the physician and naturalist Conrad Gessner (1516-1565), is a compendium of the entire body of zoological knowledge of the author’s era. Gessner’s associations with a vast array of European scholars proved invaluable during the compilation of the work.
Illustration of the Shop premises of Peter Hammer
Depiction of a fictitious publishing houseThe anti-Napoleon newspaper Neue Feuerbrände (New Fires) was one of this fictitious publishing house’s most notorious publications. The short-lived periodical, which was only published in 1807 and 1808, had a fire-red illustrated cover.
Joan Blaeus’ Great Atlas
Map series of the superlativeThe Atlas Maior was first published by the Amsterdam publisher Joan Blaeu in 1659. It consists of approximately 600 maps.
Leporello book from Sumatra
Prayers and talismanic phrases handwritten in the Batak languageThis Leporello is composed of a writing material that would be unusual in our modern culture: smoothened tree bark. Two wooden covers enclose the pages of the book which is held together by a rattan tie.
MATRIX ABC 52
Messages via ‘Signs – Books – Networks’The installation matrix abc 52 by media artist Boris Petrovsky is a unique communication system Zeichen – Bücher – Netze (Signs – Books – Networks) which can be viewed as an analogue medium in the case at the Deutschen Buch- und Schriftmuseums as well as synchronously accessed and read as a mobile application on the web.
Mazeppa or Der Todesritt durch die Wildniß
A best-selling colportage novel, c. 1883This title page introduces the first part of a 100-part colportage novel from the late 19th century. Since the 1860s, colporteurs had been selling such booklets door-to-door; due to their low price (in this case 10 pfennigs), even poor readers could afford them.
Peregrinationes in terram sanctam by Bernhard von Breidenbach
The first Christian pilgrim’s guidebookBernhard von Breidenbach (1440-1497), canon of Mainz, departed on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1483. He motives were not solely religious; he also had the idea of writing a guidebook for pilgrims to the Holy Land.
PlayStation
Worldwide successful game console from Japan, 1994Introduced in 1994 by the Japanese electronics manufacturer Sony and available on the retail market up until 2006, the PlayStation is today considered the epitome of the modern computer games console. What started out as a collaborative project between Sony and the video games producer Nintendo, eventually developed into an enormously successful console that entered the video games market as a competitor to the then-dominant Super Nintendo and the hastily launched Sega Saturn.
Postcard
From text medium to visual medium, early 20th centuryAlthough the private Parisian postage operator Petite Post was already offering readable messages as a product as early as 1760, it was still another century before the first, official, state-produced postcards appeared. On October 1, 1869, the so-called “correspondenzkarte” was introduced in Austria-Hungary. It featured a printed postage value. The regional states of Germany followed suit and released an equivalent medium shortly afterwards.
