It is worthy of our note in this connection that the first important product of the printing-press was the Bible;--was devoted, as has been said, "to the service of heaven." This first "production" was on 641 leaves of vellum, two columns to a page, and forty-two lines to each column. "Probably," says Professor Dobschütz, "not more than 100 copies of the Bible were printed, a third of these on parchment. Out of thirty-one copies which have been preserved, or, to speak more accurately, are known as such, ten are luxuriously printed on parchment and illuminated, each in a different way, but all very fine and costly."[2] (One copy of Gutenberg's first printed Bible was sold for $20,000.) The first copy of this edition known to scholars--the Latin Vulgate--was discovered long after (in 1760) in the library of Cardinal Mazarin, whence its designation, "the Mazarin Bible." Nine other copies which were upon vellum and a score that were printed on paper (two of which are in New York City) are all that are known to the bibliographers of the first "edition" of the printed Bible. While engaged in the production of this first book (which required four years, 1453-1456, to complete) Gutenberg printed smaller works--school books and the like--for immediate financial returns. In this first edition of the printed Bible the initial letters were not struck off by press but were left, together with the marginal decorations, for after illumination by hand. A Bible printed at Mainz in 1462 is the first printed book that bears the date of its production. II THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PRINTING PRESS