At length the _magnum opus_,--the celebrated _Biblia Latina Vulgata_,--made its appearance. This work is commonly known as the “MAZARIN BIBLE,” from a copy having been discovered in the Bibliotheque Mazarin at Paris, about the middle of the eighteenth century. It was recognised by the book-seller and bibliopole De Bure, who gave a minute description of it in the _Bibliographie Instructive_, (vol. i. pp. 32-40.) There can hardly exist a doubt that this is the work to which Ulric Zell refers in his account of the origin of Printing, where he says--“And in the year M.CCCC.L. which was a jubilee, they began to print; and the first book printed was the Bible in Latin.”[58] Being without a date, the exact year of its publication cannot be ascertained; but a copy exists in the Royal Library in Paris, printed on paper, and bound in two volumes, on each of which is an entry, stating the date when its binding and illuminating was completed: and as the second entry gives the information that this was finished at Mentz on the Feast of the Assumption, 1456,[59] the work itself could not have been issued from the press later than the year preceding, 1455, which secures to it an unimpeached priority in the records of bibliography. Strange to say, the existence of this work was unknown until the discovery of the Mazarin copy; since then about twenty copies have been traced in various libraries, some on vellum, and some on paper: twelve of these are now in England, and in every place where they are deposited, they are justly considered the most precious of bibliographical treasures. The type is of a large handsome Gothic character, fine and square and sharp, imitative of the best manuscripts of the time, the first letters of each chapter being painted in by hand. The book consists of 637 leaves, with two columns each containing forty-two lines printed upon each page.[60] It is beautifully executed, and remarkable for the blackness and brilliancy of the ink made use of. “It is a very striking circumstance,” says Mr. Hallam, “that the high minded inventors of this great art, tried at the very outset so bold a flight as the printing an entire Bible, and executed it with astonishing success. It was Minerva leaping on earth in her divine strength and radiant armour, ready at the moment of her nativity, to subdue and destroy her enemies. The Mazarin Bible is printed, some copies on vellum, some on paper of choice quality, with strong, black and tolerably handsome characters, but with some want of uniformity, which has led, perhaps unreasonably, to a doubt whether they were cast in a matrix.[61] We may see in imagination this venerable and splendid volume, leading up the crowded myriads of its followers, and imploring as it were a blessing on the new art, by dedicating its first fruits to heaven.”