Items17The creator’s order
  1. 1Gutenberg MuseumGutenberg MuseumThe town where European printing with movable type began, and the museum that tells the story best. Its old building is closed for a rebuild, so the collection now runs as Gutenberg Museum MOVED in the former convent of St Clare, home of the Natural History Museum. The draw is a dark, walk-in…0
  2. 2Plantin–Moretus MuseumPlantin–Moretus MuseumWhere the Gutenberg Museum explains the invention, this is a real printing business left almost as it was. The house, workshops and archive of the Plantin-Moretus printing house in Antwerp survive together, which is why the complex was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2005. The pressroom…0
  3. 3Planet WordPlanet WordThe one place here about language itself rather than its tools. Planet Word opened in October 2020 in Washington's historic Franklin School and leads visitors through 10 galleries, each built around a different history or use of language. Almost everything responds to you. A word wall in the lobby…0
  4. 4Champollion MuseumChampollion MuseumThe place to start if you want the whole map of human writing before printing enters the story. This museum in Figeac, the birthplace of Jean-François Champollion, who cracked the mystery of Egyptian hieroglyphs, describes itself as the only museum in Europe given over to the history of the world's…0
  5. 5British LibraryBritish LibraryThe Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery One free room in London that covers more of the history of writing than most whole museums. Cases are arranged by theme, from sacred texts and historical documents to literature, maps and art, so a medieval manuscript, a copy of Magna Carta and Leonardo da…0
  6. 6Thomas Jefferson BuildingThomas Jefferson BuildingThe best single lesson in the switch from pen to press anywhere in America. The Library of Congress keeps its Gutenberg Bible on permanent display by the Great Hall of its grandest building. It also owns the Giant Bible of Mainz, copied by a single scribe in 1452 and 1453, almost the moment…0
  7. 7The Old Library, Trinity College DublinThe Old Library, Trinity College DublinThe Book of Kells Experience The chance to stand in front of the most famous illuminated manuscript there is, a 1,200-year-old gospel book whose decoration shows what a hand-made book could be at its most ambitious. A ticket covers the Old Library and a digital exhibition in the Red Pavilion;…0
  8. 8Morgan Library & MuseumMorgan Library & MuseumNew York's essential stop for early books. The Morgan owns three Gutenberg Bibles, more than any other institution in the world, one on vellum and two on paper, which makes it the best place to understand that no two copies of that book are quite alike. The three are not kept on show together, so…0
  9. 9Harry Ransom CenterHarry Ransom CenterThe easiest Gutenberg Bible to see in the US. Admission is free, and the Ransom Center at the University of Texas holds one of only five complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible in the country, acquired in 1978 and kept on view. It shares the building with another landmark in recording the world,…0
  10. 10German Museum of Books and WritingGerman Museum of Books and WritingThe broadest single timeline on this list, run by the German National Library. Its permanent exhibition, Signs, Books, Networks: From Cuneiform to Binary Code, covers some 5,000 years of media history in one route, from the first written marks through movable type to the digital network age. That…0