A museum in Geneva has created a replica 16th-century Gutenberg printing press and is planning to use it to create a reproduction of an ancient Bible in French.
The attraction at the Geneva Museum is part of a tribute both to Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type and the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
The three-metre-high Gutenberg replica has been created by Swiss carpenter Pierre-Yves Schenker.
The Bible to be printed on it will be illustrated by contemporary artists such as John Armleder, Marc Bauer, Vidya Gastaldon and Mai-Thu Perret.
Martin Luther’s 95 theses attacking the Catholic Church’s practice of papal indulgences gained a widespread audience thanks to Gutenberg’s printing press, points out museum director Gabriel de Montmollin.
The exhibition places the printing press in context, about half way between the invention of writing and the advent of the internet. The exhibition runs until October 31.
The exhibition also features several best-sellers from the early days of book printing, such as 16th-century Swiss naturalist Conrad Gassner’s “Historia animalium” (history of animals) in 1558, the Mercator Atlas of 1585 and the “Gospels in Arabic and Latin” from 1590. — dpa
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