Early European Print: a new Manchester Digital Collection
31 Jul 2025
The Library is delighted to announce that the first batch of items from our Early European Print collection is now fully digitised and freely available to explore online via Manchester Digital Collections.
The John Rylands Library holds one of the world’s great collections of early European printing, with highlights including the 1423 Saint Christopher woodblock print (the oldest surviving piece of dated European printing), as well as the Gutenberg Bible (1454/55). As part of the Incunabula Cataloguing Project (2023–2027), these extraordinary, printed treasures, and many more, will for the first time be fully catalogued, digitised and made available to view online. The first batch of 50 items is now live, with a further 250 additional items to be added in the future.
This digital collection is an invaluable resource for researchers and scholars of early print culture and offers a fascinating glimpse into the origins of the printed word for anyone interested in the history of books and communication.