Incunabula Collection

A devotional work written in 1386 by Otto of Passau, Die vierundzwanzig Alten, oder, den guldin Tron (The 24 elders, or, the golden throne) is a compilation of Christian doctrine interwoven with metaphor and intended for spiritual edification. Each of its 24 chapters are delivered to the reader by one of the 24 elders from the Book of Revelations 4:4.

The BPL's is one of around 33 surviving copies of the first edition and is illustrated by a series of woodcuts, which are hand-colored.

This is a reworking of Ptolemy's Geographia into Italian verse,  accompanied by 31 engraved maps, four of which were new (Italy, France, Spain, and Palestine) and are based on then-modern projections. Berlinghieri's is just the third atlas printed in Europe and the first printed in Italian.

This edition of the visions of the 14th-century mystic, Saint Bridget of Sweden, is profusely illustrated with detailed woodcuts that have been attributed to the circle of Albrecht Dürer and sometimes to Dürer himself.

The third edition of Chaucer's Canterbury tales and one of the first books from the press of Richard Pynson, an important and early English printer. This particular copy is the earliest version of any of Chaucer's texts at the BPL and is one of four English incunabula held by the library.

The first illustrated edition of the Divine Comedy, with engravings designed by Sandro Botticelli. The BPL copy is ornately illuminated.

Perhaps the first book printed in Europe outside of Mainz, the Mentelin Bible is one of the earliest substantial books printed in Europe. It survives today in no more than 31 copies.

This copy belonged to the minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker (1810-1860), who bequeathed his entire personal collection of books to the BPL.

The first edition of one of the most important works in the history of mathematics and science, this is also a milestone in the history of European printing. The precise geometrical diagrams in this edition of Euclid, printed in Venice by Erhard Ratdolt, represent a major step forward in the technology of printing and page design.

The BPL's Gutenberg Bible leaf contains text from the book of Exodus and originates from a copy that can be traced back to the Court Library at Mannheim, Germany.

In the 20th century, this copy, by that point incomplete, was purchased by the book dealer Gabriel Wells and broken up into small sections and leaves. Wells commissioned A. Edward Newton's essay, A Noble Fragment: Being a Leaf of the Gutenberg Bible, 1450-1455, which he issued in individual portfolios, each containing a single, original leaf of the Gutenberg Bible.