The Tiffin weekly tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1859-1868, 1862-12-19
Thn oldest Ribic iu America

tE u NNAuilN VI NbhuA NlN NhA'NANN NNaa -
and belongs to the Rev. Dr.. DuiGol, OF
Detroit, to whom it was presented 10y
Lewis Cass. Jr., our late Minister 20
Rome. He procured il Of a Greek monk
who brought it from the Greek Convent
lof st. Catharinc, at tho foot of Mount
Sinai.
Mr.. Cass bcrriculcd the monk, who
was in trouble, and he, in return, present.
ed him with the vOldmc which we shall
describe.
According to his story Il was the work
Of one Of the ancient monk scrihcs in the
convent above named When IL became
known that Mr., Coss was parting with it,
aud that il was going out of the country,
the round sum ol $4,000 was offered him
for it by persons who coveted So ln'stl-
unable relic, aud were unwilling that It
should leave the old world.
Tho book is made entirely of otvellum,
and the printing is all douo by hlnd,w!th
pen aud ink. Every letter is perfect in
its shape. und cannot he distinguished by
any imperiections in form from the print
ed letters OF the prrscut day. The shape
of the letters is, ofcourse, different rom
those now in use, but in no other respect
can they be distinguished from the printed
matter.
Tho immense amount Of labor may be
conceived from the fact that teorc are two
columns on each page, each of which
! lacks only nhoUt six letters of being ss
wide as the columns of this paper. They
will average sixty lines to the column
The columns numbering 1900, We have
about $4,000 lines in the whole book
Nothing short of a lifetime could ac-
complish such Il work.
The d ,tc of the bible Is A. d. $50. III
was consequently made b60 years before
printing was invented, and is 93S years
old. There is probably nothing on this
continent, in the shape of a book, equal
| to Il in age The vellum upon which IL
is printed is Of the finest kind, aud is
made OF the skin Of young lambs aud
kids, dressed, and rubbed with pumicc
stone until it is very thin. 1t is some-
what thicker than common paper, being
n medium between that and the drawing
paper now in use. The veins of the
skin are distinctly visible in many pla-
.ces.
A pencil marx was drawn by the opc-
Iratur to rude the construction OF each
line. Many pages have these lines visi.
bic on the whole surface, no effort being
made tu rub them out. Two limos, run-
ming up and dowu, divide the columns
With mathematical accuracy At the
! beginning of each chapter, highly color
cd ornamental letters are placed. These
are the only marks of the divisions OF
chapters. There are no subdivisions in
to verses, the chapters running through
in one paragraph to the cnL, aud no de-
scriptivo headings.
1t is remarkable aud most Interest,"
ling fact. that the very first uso 10 which
the discovery OF printing was upplicd,wOs
the production OF the Holy Bible. This
was accomplished at Munt2, between the
years llj0 l45J. Gutenberg was the
inventor of the art, and Faust, gold
smith furnished the necessary funds
Had it been n single pugc, or even an en-
tire sheet, which was then produced,
there might have been less occasion to
have noticed it; but there was some
THING in the whole character of the uirhiI
which, if not Unprecedented, rendered it
singular in the usual current Of events
/ This Bible was in two folio volumes,
which have been Justly praised for the
strength and beauty Of the paper, the oX-
actncss of the register, and the lustre of
| the ink.
The work contained 1889 pages; and
being the first ever printed, OF course in.
Ivolycd long period oI time, and an inn
mcnsc amount of mental, manual and
mech0nical labor; and yet ior Il long
time after il had been finished and offer
ed for sulc, not single human being
save the artists themselves, knew how it
had been accomplished.
or the first printed Bible, eighteen cop
les are now known 10 be in existence -four
ofwhich are printed on veIun, Two of
these ar, in English, one being in the
Grenyillc collections; one is in the Royal
Library Of Berlin, and one in the Royal
\ Library of Paris. OF the fourteen re-
manning copies, ten are in England; there
being copy in the Libraries of Oxford,
Edinburg and London, and seven in the
collections of different nOblcmcn.
James Lennox, OF New York, possess
es the only one which tho United States
can boast of. The vellum copy has
been sold us high as eighteen hundred
Dollars.
In this cnnnection a few words on the
origin and price of books may not be out
Of place. Books were originally boards,
or the inneG bark Of trees, the word being
derived from the Saxon beuch, Doc, or
bench, beech tree, Barks and skins are
stillused by somo nations. Papyrus, an
Egyptian plant, was adopted in that
country, aud was an artce of commtrce.
| Before the art Of printing, books were
| OF incredible price. From the seventh
TO the thirteenth century, many bishops
could not read, aud kings were scarcely
able to sign thoir names; and hence the
use of seal and sealings. Copying of
books was productive employment, A
good copy Of The Bible, on vellum, em-
ployed TWO years. or course, they were
deur.
The bequest Of one to religious house
entitled the donor to masses for his soul;
| and such was their value, that they usu-
ally brought double their weight in gold.
| The Roman de la Rosa was sold for
above Sl5O, and a Homlly was exchaug-
ed for two hundred sheep and five quar-
ters Of wheat.
John, Bishop Of Winchester, on Dor
rowing from his Cathedral Convent at
ST. Swithina, in 1899, Bible with mar
ginal annotations, in two folio volumes,
gave bonds for the return Of ii, drawn up
with great solemnity.
So late as the year 1900, the library of
the University OF Oxford consisted OF on
! ly few tracts chained " lacked in chests
in the choir Of st. Mary's Church. One
OF the statues of st. Mary's College, in
Oxford, in l440, enacts, that no scholar
shall occupy book in the library more