Several years ago, I mentioned to a friend that I had seen an edition of the Gutenberg Bible in person and I thought it was the most beautiful book ever printed. He promptly snorted and asked me why I would ever get excited about a bible. At the time, I couldn't respond because I was so astounded that a person would ever be that ignorant, especially someone I considered a bibliophile. Now that I've had some time to cool down, my reasons for gushing about the Gutenberg Bible would be:
1) The printing of the Gutenberg Bible wasn't just a product of the invention of a printing "press," but the creation of an entire system for printing. Gutenberg's system included new developments in ink, paper, typography, illustration, design and typesetting.
2) As books go, it exemplified everything graphic design and book layout should be on top of being the very first book ever printed on a press. Illuminations were combined with text producing a book that was beautiful and printed quickly.
3) The press laid the foundation for the mass production of books.
3) By developing a system to distribute books to the masses quickly and cheaply, information and literacy was spread to many more people. "Knowledge is Power" (Francis Bacon) and finally
4) Since more people had access to more knowledge, many people argue that Gutenberg's press was the single greatest achievement of the Western World.
I'm not friends with that guy anymore for many reasons, but mostly because he didn't understand the importance of the Gutenberg bible.
