The German Museum of Books and Writing (german: Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum (DBSM)) in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, Germany, founded in 1884 as ''Deutsches Buchgewerbe-Museum'', is the world's oldest museum of its kind, dedicated to collecting and preserving objects and documents as well as literature connected with the history of books, including paper,

printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...

techniques, the art of illustration, and bookbinding. The museum is housed in a modern €60 million annex to the German National Library in Leipzig built in 2011. In 1886, the museum acquired the entire book collection of , which he had sold to the

Kingdom of Saxony The Kingdom of Saxony (german: Königreich Sachsen), lasting from 1806 to 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. The kingdom was formed from the Electorate of Saxo ...

the year before. A rare copy of a 42-line

Gutenberg Bible The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the " Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed ...

printed on

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...

was among the books in the collection. At the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the Bible was taken as

war booty Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

and transferred to the Russian State Library in Moscow, where it remains today.

References

External links

* 1884 establishments in Germany Buildings and structures in Leipzig Media museums in Germany Museums established in 1884 Museums in Leipzig {{Germany-museum-stub