Selected Special Collections

Otto Vollbehr Collection

Incunabula

The Vollbehr Collection, stated George Parker Winship of the Harvard Library shortly before its purchase by act of Congress in 1930, "is representative, to an amazing degree, of every sort of publication which came from the fifteenth century presses." The collection contains incunabula produced at 635 different printing establishments and an rich selection of books in vernacular languages. This acquisition quadrupled the number of fifteenth century books held by the Library of Congress and established the Library as the leading center for the study of early printing.

The treasure of the Vollbehr Collection is the copy of the Bible produced by Johann Gutenberg at Mainz about 1456-the first book printed with movable type in the western world. The Library's Gutenberg Bible is one of the three surviving perfect copies on vellum. The work had been in the possession of the Benedictine Order for nearly five centuries before it was acquired by Dr. Otto Vollbehr from the Abbey of Saint Paul in eastern Carinthia, Austria. Bound as three volumes, the Bible retains the bookplate of the monastery of Saint Blasius (the owen of the work until the late eighteenth century) as well as its late sixteenth century white pigskin binding. There are 3,114 volumes in the Vollbehr Collection.

Digitized Material From the Otto Vollbehr Collection

Flos Sanctorum. / [Castille, Eponymous Press, ca. 1472-1475].
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