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The Gutenberg Bible turns a new page

By Gerald Cloud

The Ransom Center’s two-volume Gutenberg Bible is on permanent display in the lobby. Every three months the Center’s staff changes which page of the Bible is displayed, allowing us to share different pages with our visitors, and also protect the volumes from over exposure to light, stress on their bindings, and other preservation concerns. The process of turning the Gutenberg’s pages involves staff of the conservation department, exhibition services, the curator, and of course campus security. Each time we select a new opening we look for some unique or exemplary feature that will reveal the history of our copy or some unique feature absent from the other known copies of the Bible.  Read more

Pforzheimer library receives proactive conservation assessment

By Kate Contakos

In 1986 when the Ransom Center acquired the Carl H. Pforzheimer library of early English literature, with books dating from 1475 to 1700, the book world gasped. The Pforzheimer library was the outstanding private collection of early English books available, and the acquisition of this exceptional private library of carefully selected rare, and in some cases, unique books in extraordinary condition, represents one of the Ransom Center’s great achievements in book collecting.

 

The Ransom Center first acquired Pforzheimer’s copy of the Gutenberg Bible in 1978, one of the most interesting of the 49 known copies of the bible. Rich in both provenance (early annotations place our copy in a fifteenth-century Carthusian monastery) and textual variations (including unique type settings), it is one of the greatest treasures here at the Ransom Center. When the Pforzheimer library arrived eight years later, it continued to impress. It contains the first book printed in English, by William Caxton, titled Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, all four Shakespeare folios, deep holdings in Chaucer, Milton, and Spenser, three copies of the King James Bible from 1611, and the 1535 Coverdale Bible, which is the first bible printed in English, just to name some of the highlights.

 

The Pforzheimer books are significant bibliographically, intellectually, and culturally, thus the conservation department is proactively looking after their preservation needs. The conservation department has performed previous condition surveys on this collection, but this time we wanted to have a more comprehensive approach. The previous efforts were analyzed, the current curator of the collection was consulted, and the new survey was designed for a wider capture of information that will inform not only conservation needs but curatorial interests such as bibliographical data, bindings, provenance, and metadata. This particular survey will examine all 1,100 books in the collection, in order to address its conservation needs. The survey will be complete by the end of 2015, and the results will be shared publicly.

 

The Pforzheimer Library is the most frequently used early book collection at the Ransom Center, with many teaching faculty in the humanities using the collection for their classes and several visiting fellows researching within this collection. And with the arrival this year of the new curator, Gerald Cloud, the collection’s use is certain to increase and attract a broader audience.

 

Read related Preservation Week 2015 posts.

 

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Click on thumbnails to view larger images.

 

New websites for the Gutenberg Bible and the First Photograph

By Alicia Dietrich

Page from new First Photograph web exhibition.
Page from new First Photograph web exhibition.

The Ransom Center launched updated websites for its two permanent exhibitions, the Gutenberg Bible and the First Photograph. The websites contain information, interactive components, and content geared toward children related to each exhibition.

The Gutenberg Bible is the first substantial book printed from movable type on a printing press. It was printed in Johann Gutenberg’s shop in Mainz, Germany, between 1450 and 1455. View a video demonstrating Gutenberg’s printing process.

Gutenberg’s invention revolutionized the distribution of knowledge by making it possible to produce many accurate copies of a single work in a relatively short amount of time. View a map that shows the spread of printing after Gutenberg.

Visitors can turn the pages of the Gutenberg Bible, view the pages in high-resolution, and browse by Books of the Bible or page characteristics, including famous passages, illuminations, and watermarks.

The Ransom Center holds one of five complete copies in the United States. View a map of where the other Gutenberg Bibles are housed.

The First Photograph, which Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce produced in 1826, is the foundation of the Ransom Center’s photography collection. The 8 x 6.5-inch heliograph depicts a view just outside the workroom window of Niépce’s estate in Le Gras in east central France.

Website visitors can watch an animated video showing how the First Photograph was made as well as create a virtual heliograph of themselves using a webcam; the virtual heliograph image replicates the photographic technique used to create the First Photograph.

The website offers content geared for younger visitors, including digital coloring pages of the Gutenberg Bible and First Photograph and the opportunity to use Gutenberg’s process to print their own message.

The website was made possible through a generous gift by Margaret Hight.

Holiday hours at the Ransom Center

By Alicia Dietrich

The Harry Ransom Center. Photo by Pete Smith.
The Harry Ransom Center. Photo by Pete Smith.

While the Ransom Center will be closed for Thanksgiving Day, the galleries will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, November 26, and from noon to 5 p.m. on this Saturday and Sunday.

Vistors can see the current exhibition, Discovering the Language of Photography: The Gernsheim Collection, as well as The First Photograph and the Gutenberg Bible, which are on permanent display.

Free docent-led tours of the Gernsheim exhibition are offered at 2 p.m. on this Saturday and Sunday.

The Reading Room will be closed on Friday, November 26, and Saturday, November 27, but will reopen on Monday, November 29.

See full digitized version of the Gutenberg Bible

By Elana Estrin

Volume 1 of Old Testament of Gutenberg Bible. Iosua, or Joshua. Iudicum, or Judges. Pages 114 verso and 115 recto.
Volume 1 of Old Testament of Gutenberg Bible. Iosua, or Joshua. Iudicum, or Judges. Pages 114 verso and 115 recto.
Among the Ransom Center’s greatest treasures is the Gutenberg Bible, one of only five complete copies in the United States and only 21 complete copies in the world. The Ransom Center digitized the entire copy of its Gutenberg Bible in 2002, resulting in 1,300 images that reveal the text, large illuminations, and handwritten annotations. These images can be viewed online in the Gutenberg Bible web exhibition. The exhibition also includes information about Johann Gutenberg, the popularization of printing, the appearance of the Bible, and more.

Only two weekends left to see "Making Movies" and "¡Viva! Mexico’s Independence"

By Alicia Dietrich

Costumes in the Ransom Center's 'Making Movies' exhibition. Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.
Costumes in the Ransom Center's 'Making Movies' exhibition. Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.
The Harry Ransom Center’s exhibitions Making Movies and ¡Viva! Mexico’s Independence close Sunday, August 1.

Featuring items from the Ransom Center’s extensive film collections, Making Movies reveals the collaborative nature of the filmmaking process and focuses on how the artists involved—from writers to directors, actors to cinematographers—transform the written word into moving image.

If you can’t visit the exhibition before it closes, view a video interview with Associate Curator of Film Steve Wilson discussing how the Ransom Center’s holdings document the history of the motion picture industry.

¡Viva! Mexico’s Independence showcases materials from the Ransom Center’s collections including the 1529 document appointing Hernán Cortés Captain General of New Spain; unpublished letters exchanged between Ferdinand Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, and his wife Carlotta; documentary photographs of the Mexican Revolution; and period broadsides illustrated by José Guadalupe Posada. The year 2010 marks the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s independence from Spain and the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, pivotal events in Mexico’s struggle for self-governance.

Free docent-led tours of the exhibitions are offered Tuesdays at noon and Saturdays at 2 p.m. through the end of the exhibition.

The permanent exhibitions, the Gutenberg Bible and the First Photograph, remain on display in the lobby. A new exhibition Discovering the Language of Photography: The Gernsheim Collection opens in the galleries on Tuesday, September 7.

The galleries are open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours on Thursday evenings to 7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays. Admission is free.
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