Like every great invention, it responded to a need: the increase in literacy and greater cultural activity, booming since the thirteenth century with the creation of several European universities, were the causes of a greater demand for books, cheaper and quickly manufactured. The result of this new invention was the incunables, a term that refers to printed books with mobile types until the year 1500. The National Library of Spain, in addition to having the most important collection of incunables in the country, preserves a good sample of the oldest or representative copies of the earliest printing presses.

Although it is known that Gutenberg began his experiments and first proofs of printing in Strasbourg around 1436, the epicentre of the new typographic art was Mainz. In 1460, the Catholicon by Johannes Balbus was printed, an edition attributed to Gutenberg and of which the National Library of Spain National Library of Spain preserves a copy, which is also erected as the oldest of our collection. Two years later, also in Mainz, Gutenberg’s former partner, Johann Fust, printed with Peter Schoffer a two-part Latin Bible, better known as the 48-line Bible, due to the number of lines contained in each sheet. A beautifully lit copy of this edition has been preserved to this day and is kept in the National Library of Spain National Library.

Soon the new art of printing spread beyond Mainz and printing presses were installed in several cities, such as Nuremberg, Augsburg or Leipzig. In addition, the looting of Mainz on 27 October 1462 by Adolf de Nassau, confronted with Dieter de Isenburg by the archbishopric, paralysed the printing industry and many printers fled not only from the city, but also from Germany. Italy was one of the favorite countries of German printers and, therefore, one of the places where the new invention was developed at an earlier date. In Rome, on December 31, 1467, the German typographer Ulrich Han printed the Meditations of Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, who was a key figure in the development of printing in Italy in the 1460s. Several milestones converge in this incunable: it was the first edition that comes out of the presses of Ulrich Han, the first printed work of a Spanish author and the first illustrated work printed in Italy. Four copies are preserved in the world of this edition, one of them in the National Library of Spain.

We also store in our collection a copy of the incunable De vita christiana. De singularitate clericorum, printed in Cologne in 1467. It is a text falsely attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo and, in fact, is part of the list of works known as pseudo-Augustinians. The edition was edited by Ulrich Zell de Hanau, a clergyman from the diocese of Mainz who set up his workshop in Cologne. He was a typographer specialized in smaller books, specifically in the fourth, and in works of theological subject, as demonstrated by De vita christiana.