Catholicism.org contributor, Mrs. Eleonore Villarrubia, a graduate of Tulane University, left me a very interesting page from the university’s quarterly magazine (Fall, 2011) on the accidental discovery, in the rare book collection of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, of a moveable-type printed edition of the Latin Vulgate Bible published in 1481. Writer Alicia Duplessis Jasmine describes the four volume, Old and New Testament collection, as a “weathered pigskin Bible bound together by brass clips.” Remember that Guttenburg’s printing press, which also produced the first printed Latin Bible, was invented only about forty years before. The inset pictures on page eleven of the Tulane University magazine show that the Bible is in amazingly good condition.
This is what happened. About two years ago, Michael Kuczynski, associate professor of English and medieval studies, needed to check out the accuracy of the Latin text for a scriptural footnote for a book on which he was working. So, he did an online search for Biblia Latina in the school’s library catalogue database. There he found that Tulane had this historical treasure in its own library. Alicia Duplessis Jasmine writes that “Each of the mammoth volumes . . . stands nearly twenty inches tall and is about four inches thick. The book was printed using moveable type designed to have the appearance of handwriting . . .” The volumes also contain commentary on the scriptural verses. Kuczynski notes that there are pages of sheet music pasted to the inside covers, which help to fasten the Bible’s inside flaps: “One of these pastedowns was from a medieval choir book that had the words of chants and musical notes in different colored links.”
More research needs to be done on the history of this Bible as to where it went over the past five centuries and how it came to Louisiana. The Bible was printed in Strasbourg and afterward became the possession of the municipal library in Budva, Montenegro. Tulane acquired it from the Louisiana State museum. Needless to say, Professor Kuczynski is thrilled to be a part of the discovery and his students are anxious to help him learn more.
