The HLSB is in possession of a copy of the most famous printed work in the world: the B 42, i.e. a Gutenberg Bible or, more precisely, the Old Testament, one of the copies that was printed on parchment.

The binding, described by Rudolf Stöwesand in 1929 as "indisputably the most beautiful of the surviving Gutenberg Bibles", served as the model for the facsimile edition of the B 42 from the Staatsbibliothek Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz published by Idion in 1979.

The binding still bears witness to great craftsmanship and thus indirectly to the high esteem in which this work was held shortly after it was printed. The Gothic binding was made by an Erfurt bookbinder around 1460. His name has not been verified to this day, so that he is always described as the "bookbinder with the lute and the knots".

Digital copy of the Gutenberg Bible