[Footnote III-40: It is called the Mazarine Bible in consequence of the first known copy being discovered in the library formed by Cardinal Mazarine. Dr. Dibdin, in his Bibliographical Tour, vol. ii. p. 191, mentions having seen not fewer than ten or twelve copies of this edition, which he says must not be designated as “of the very first degree of rarity.” An edition of the Bible, supposed to have been printed at Bamberg by Albert Pfister about 1461, is much more scarce.] The copy produced by Maugerard is printed on paper, and is now in the Royal Library at Paris. It is bound in two volumes; and every complete page consists of two columns, each containing forty-two lines. At the conclusion of the first volume the person by whom it was rubricated[III-41] and bound has written the following memorandum: “_Et sic est finis prime partis biblie. Scr. Veteris testamenti. Illuminata seu rubricata et illuminata p’ henricum Albeh alius Cremer anno dn’i m.cccc.lvi festo Bartholomei apli--Deo gratias--alleluja._” At the end of the second volume the same person has written the date in words at length: “_Iste liber illuminatus, ligatus & completus est p’ henricum Cremer vicariū ecclesie collegatur Sancti Stephani maguntini sub anno D’ni millesimo quadringentesimo quinquagesimo sexto festo assumptionis gloriose virginis Marie. Deo gracias alleluja._”[III-42] Fischer[III-43] says that this last memorandum assigns “einen spätern tag”--a later day--to the end of the rubricator’s work. In this he is mistaken; for the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, when the _second_ volume was finished, is on the 15th of August: while the feast of St. Bartholomew, the day on which he finished the _first_, falls on August 24th. Lambinet,[III-44] who doubts the genuineness of those inscriptions, makes the circumstance of the second volume being finished nine days before the first, a ground of objection. This seeming inconsistency however can by no means be admitted as a proof of the inscriptions being spurious. It is indeed more likely that the rubricator might actually finish the second volume before the first, than that a modern forger, intent to deceive, should not have been aware of the objection. [Footnote III-41: In most of the early printed books the capitals were left to be inserted in red ink by the pen or pencil of the “rubricator.”] [Footnote III-42: There are fac-simile tracings of those memorandums, on separate slips of paper, in the copy of the Mazarine Bible in the King’s Library at the British Museum; and fac-simile engravings of them are given in the M’Carthy Catalogue.] [Footnote III-43: Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 20, 3te. Lieferung.] [Footnote III-44: Recherches sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie, p. 135.]