Rosseti Public Joint Stock : A Unique Exhibition on History of Book Printing Opened at the Hermitage Museum with the Support of Rosseti Group

10.12.2021

The project was implemented jointly with the Russian State Library, which provided the central exhibit - the Bible, created in 1454 by Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of book printing in Europe. This is the only specimen in the world adorned with 282 colored miniatures. The publication is exhibited for the first time in St. Petersburg.

The exposition also includes more than 100 exhibits: dictionaries and textbooks, novels and popular literature for reading, guidebooks, herbariums with descriptions of plants, works on astronomy and architecture, and other specialized publications.

You can visit "The Gutenberg Bible. Books of the Modern Period" exhibition until March 13, 2022 as part of any route along the Main Museum Complex.

"There are many rarities and book treasures at this exhibition. It was born as a vivid example of cooperation between two remarkable scientific repositories - the Russian State Library and the State Hermitage Museum. However, the most important thing is the demonstration of the Gutenberg Bible, an exceptional monument of the world culture, a masterpiece of book art and a symbol of the great intellectual and technological Revolution, the birth of printing. The Bible worthily became the first book to demonstrate all the tricks of connecting and separating individual letters, new technologies and new aesthetics generated by them.

This rare volume surprisingly combined the charms of both handwritten and printed books, and managed to turn differences into beauty", said Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the Museum. This project is by no means the first example of cooperation between Rosseti Group and the State Hermitage Museum. On December 7, 2021, on the day of its 257th anniversary, the Hermitage opened a large-scale exhibition of Albrecht Dürer, the partner of which became the company. Earlier, Rosseti Group took part in other major projects, including an exhibition of masterpieces from the collection of the Morozov brothers, a retrospective of the art of Ilya & Emilia Kabakov.