ABSTRACT
Johann Aurifaber discerns in Dr Martin Luther’s graphic dictum the central role of printing in the spread of Reformational doctrines, and above the entire Bible itself. The history of printing is inextricably bound up with the spread of the Bible: in the early 1450s it was the Vutyate - St Jerome’s translation, which had been the standard one since late antiquity - which Gutenberg chose to be the first printed book of any substance and which he produced magnicently in a stately textura typeface. The woodcuts were evidently influenced by the “author portraits” of Gunther Zainer’s edition, but they are also related to miniatures in manuscript Bibles and story Bibles from the Cologne-Netherlandish region. Luther’s public and clear avowal of the Bible as the highest authority in questions of faith and his steadfast reasoning from the Bible had awakened a great need for an accessible translation.
