42line

42line, commonly written as the 42-line Bible or Forty-two-Line Bible, is the name given to one of the earliest major books produced with movable type in the West. It is most closely associated with Johannes Gutenberg and his workshop in Mainz, Germany, in the 1450s. The designation refers to the typical page layout, which contains about 42 lines of text per page, a format that became a benchmark for early printed Bibles.

The 42-line Bible is widely regarded as a milestone in the history of printing because it demonstrates the practical use of movable type to reproduce a substantial Latin text with relative consistency and speed. It helped establish the viability of printed books for widespread distribution and contributed to the broader shift from manuscript culture to print culture in Europe. The project was produced in the early period of Gutenberg’s workshop and is often discussed alongside other early press products that showcased advances in typography, ink, and page design.

Surviving copies of the 42-line Bible are distributed among major libraries and private collections worldwide. While exact counts vary as new discoveries are made, dozens of complete or substantial copies are known to exist. Notable holdings include institutions in North America and Europe that provide access to facsimiles or digitized reproductions. These copies continue to be studied for insights into early printing techniques, type design, and the dissemination of Latin literature in the fifteenth century. In modern scholarship, the 42-line Bible remains a symbol of the dawn of printed publishing and the technological origins of mass communication.