WORLD’S FIRST PRINT COMES TO MELBOURNE

Print aficionados are in for a real treat, with the world’s earliest printed items coming to Melbourne next month, to be put on show at the 55th annual Melbourne Rare Book Fair.

Among the remarkable set of items on display will be the world’s first printed object, the Hyakumantō Dhāraṇī, created in Japan between AD 764-770. There will also be a page of the first print run of the Gutenberg Bible – the first ever piece of print in the Western world – which dates from 1454-55. Also on show will be a hand-coloured, first edition of the world’s first illustrated encyclopaedia, the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle, and from our shores, The Birds of Australia by John Gould, with full-colour litho illustrations and letterpress text, printed here in 1848.

In AD 764 the Empress Shōtoku in Japan commissioned one million miniature wooden pagodas for distribution to 10 major Buddhist temples in Japan. Known collectively as the Hyakumantō, each contained a small scroll on rice paper with a Buddhist mantra or prayer (dhāraṇī), which was most likely printed on a bronze tablet – although some scholars suggest wooden blocks were used.

The Gutenberg Bible, of which an original leaf will be on display, was the first ever book printed in Europe. It used movable metal type, with printing on Gutenberg's new invention, the printing press. Only 49 of the original 158, 165 or 180 Bibles remain (there is ongoing debate about the number printed in that first run), and of those, 28 survive in part, and 21 as a whole book. If one of the remaining complete Gutenberg Bibles from that run were to come up for sale today, it is estimated it would command a price of $40m-$50m.

The Birds of Australia was published in seven volumes, from 1840 to 1849. It used 681 litho plates, which were hand coloured. The text was letterpress. The book was printed by R & JE Taylor, with just 250 sets of the seven volumes. A remarkable 175 are now in the hands of various institutions, and the remaining 75 are either in private collections, or have been broken up and sold as individual prints. A complete set of all seven volumes recently sold at auction for $350,000.

The 2025 Melbourne Rare Book Fair takes place from 31 July to 2 August at the Wilson Hall in The University of Melbourne. Admission is free.