No complete Gutenberg Bible has sold since 1978, when one went for $2.4 million; today estimates run between $25 and $35 million. Yet the object was never meant to be rare. It was the first attempt in European history to mass-produce a book cheaply. This episode reframes Johannes Gutenberg as a 15th-century founder in Mainz who funded his flagship project by printing indulgences and Latin grammar books, invented an oil-based metallic ink from scratch, and cast 290 unique characters, including ligatures, to mimic handwritten script.

The story then turns to the mid-production cash crisis visible in the books themselves: the shift from 40 to 42 lines per page, the awkward 41-line page ten, the decision to increase the print run, and the justification technique that produced the woven textura look. We cover the imported Italian linen paper, the ...