Biblia pauperum. Blockbook, [The Netherlands, ca.1460-1470]

Previously considered a precursor of printing with moveable types, blockbooks constitute an entirely separate method of printing which was practiced primarily in the Netherlands around 1460-1470. A block of wood was cut with two complete pages of both text and picture and inked. A single sheet for the two pages was then laid over it and rubbed to receive the impression.

As a genre, the typological Biblia pauperum is related to Bonaventura’s Meditationes vitae Christi and Ludolphus de Saxonia’s Vita Christi in that it offers visual imagination as a vehicle for meditative devotion, centred on the life of Christ. A scene from Christ’s life is always placed in the central panel. Parallels are on each occasion drawn between the Old and the New Testament, whereby events in the former are taken to prefigure those in the latter.