From its beginning, members of the Church were very actively involved with the new medium. They acted as benefactors and sponsors (Cardinals Nicholas of Cusa and Bessarion, Pope Sixtus IV), as editors and correctors (Franciscan and Augustinian editors of liturgical texts, mathematics, logic, and literature), as authors of lay as well as religious works (Werner Rolewinck), as translators (Nicolò Malerbi of the Camaldoli order in Venice translated the Bible into Italian), as printers (Benedictines in Augsburg, Erfurt, Subiaco near Rome; Augustinian Hermits in Nuremberg; Cistercians in Zinna; the Dominican nuns of Ripoli at Florence; Fratres Vitae Communis in Marienthal, Rostock, Brussels, and Cologne; Franciscans of Santa Maria Gloriosa in Venice), and finally, as book users and owners, both privately (Jacobus Zenus, Bishop of Padua, Cardinal Grimani in Venice, and the thousands others now identified in MEI database) and institutionally (thousands in the MEI database). The preservation of thousands of incunables for posterity has to be credited in large part to the libraries of religious institutions.

Bibles in various European languages were published and circulated around Europe already 50 years before the famous German Bible of Martin Luther (1522-34). Who used these thousands of Bibles? Ongoing research at the University of Oxford is examining the surviving copies, beginning with the Italian editions.

Women wrote, chose, illustrated, and proofread the text, set the type, operated the press, ran the business. Women also commissioned books to be printed for their use, as at San Zaccaria in Venice, and of course they also read books.

A list made by Leonardo of 38 books in his possession at the end of the 15th century. The works, in print, are the same as those sold by De Madiis in Venice. If Leonardo had the same books that many other people were buying, and book-buyers were not all geniuses (like him), then we can say that Leonardo had an ordinary library.

We do not know the exact editions of the works Leonardo lists, but here are images of some of the editions which were on the market when he acquired his books – actual copies from his library have so far not been traced.

A carefully orchestrated case was mounted against the Jews of Trent, in northern Italy, following the murder of Simoncino, a little boy, in the city in 1475. The bishop-prince Giovanni Hinderbach accused them of ritual murder. Members of the Jewish community were arrested, put on trial, and after confessing under torture, burned. Printed editions of the story, with illustrations, were immediately produced.

Hundreds of indulgences, in thousands of copies, were printed to raise money for the Catholic Church, and customised by hand, like forms with blanks which needed to be filled in by hand. Any sin would be forgiven in exchange for donations. As proof of forgiveness the seller provided a certificate, the indulgence. Many indulgences were sold to repair churches or fund hospitals, but also to finance the war against the Turks who were advancing into Europe. Printing allowed the practice to expand in scope: it is this practice that Luther would attack in the following century.

Surviving copies are very rare because people who bought them tended to be buried with them.